


Conclusions

by StrivingArtist



Series: Mute!Tony [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Misunderstandings, Mute!Tony, Realistic depictions of mental health, Recovery, but they muddle their way through, everyone has mental health issues, severe angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2020-12-14 23:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21023669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingArtist/pseuds/StrivingArtist
Summary: Bucky spent months trying not to think about what he really wanted with Tony. Not while he was hurting. Not while he was silent. Now Tony is back, and Bucky can't stop seeing how his presence pushes Tony back into quiet.Tony spent months trusting no one but Bucky to see how bad it was. Now he's back, and he hates that Bucky will see that he's not as recovered as he pretends.





	1. For the Best

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I left this fic alone for far too long.  
Time to let these two have a happy ending.  
It is, however, me. Thus. It's gonna hurt first.  
If you want to know part of why I've been awol, come check out this thing on this [Tumblr Post](https://caitymschmidt.tumblr.com/post/188333082625/caitymschmidt-ten-days-til-publication-you).

Officially, it was a party to celebrate the Avengers absolutely destroying Doom that morning. 

Four thousand bots attacked Detroit, and there were zero civilian deaths. Even injuries were minimal; cuts and scrapes, sprained ankles and wrists, a gentleman who fell on the stairs and cracked his ribs, and three moderate concussions. It was a good day. A great one. They deserved to celebrate, and it was a great excuse.

But all of them knew the party was for Iron Man. 

For Tony Stark. 

For a man that lost his voice and lost himself, and found his way back to them even though they’d failed a hundred ways as they tried to reach him. 

So. 

Naturally.

The room was bright and happy, the Avengers shared smiles they refused to explain as Tony flitted from group to group, telling stories, chatting, and gossiping. Rambling. Babbling. His smile alone could have lit up the room, but twinkling red and gold bulbs strung haphazardly from the ceiling made him laugh every time he saw them, and that sound dialed the space even brighter. 

Steve and Nat tailed him, not unlike the way dogs around a family member that was gone for a few weeks - half thrilled, half terrified they’d vanish again.

Bruce talked to Helen Cho about her latest research as they drank some fizzy concoction that Clint had invented and given a Doctor Doom themed name. 

Thor and Sam were trading soldier stories as they played pool. 

Clint was at the bar with Hill and Rhodey and Pepper, making increasingly silly drinks for everyone. 

It was perfect. A big happy family, celebrating their happily ever after. 

Jarvis was probably taking pictures and B-roll shots for the press team to show how friendly and approachable and human the Avengers were. 

Tony cracked up as Steve blushed over whatever Nat said, and every group paused what they were doing to smile towards him. It was impossible not to. They loved him, and they’d messed up, and they didn’t deserve him, but they’d gotten him back again. Of course they’d smile and breathe deeper every time they heard proof he was so carefree and healed. 

It really was perfect. 

Like a promo photo. 

Four months after Tony returned to them, everyone was happy again. 

Bucky slipped out through the stairwell before he could ruin it. 

* * *

It wasn’t a light switch. 

It didn’t change all at once, but the burden he’d carried since Tony got on the jet eased when he heard the man speak in the kitchen. Too fragile to risk, Bucky didn’t ruin the moment by blurting out anything that needed a reply. He let Tony hold onto his hand, marvelling that he was back, and shook with the relief of him coming back at all. 

The others came later. 

An hour and a little bit more. 

That’s how long Bucky sat with Tony in the kitchen, drinking coffee, skipping his morning run. After so long spent without speech between them, he didn’t know how to talk to him. He didn’t know how to say that he’d spent every day thinking about him, and hoping he’d come back. He didn’t know how to tell him that, in his loneliest, most hopeful moments, he had dreamed of having with Tony. It would be too much to put on him so soon, so Bucky kept quiet, like they always were together, and savored the time they had. 

The Avengers came in search of coffee that morning, and found their missing teammate. 

Tony shivered when he heard Steve tromping down the hall, and Buck watched him glue a smile to his face. 

“Sweet T,” Bucky whispered, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Tony nodded, pulling his hand away and rising to meet the Captain.

Jokes were cracked in awkward voices, and Tony threw them right back, visibly forcing the discomfort to dissipate. The team arrived in drips, and Tony talked to all of them, quieter than he’d been maybe, but he  _ talked _ . One by one, as they arrived, he picked up pieces of the man he’d been, like a jacket he’d left behind. 

Tony’s return threw off everyone’s morning routine. No one minded. By the time they were ordering lunch, Steve bumped into Bucky’s side and said how nice it was to see Tony happy again. How great it was that he was joking and laughing. How good it would be to have him back to himself.

Something in Bucky’s stomach clenched. 

That was the start of it. 

But he didn’t know it then.

* * *

Recovery wasn’t linear. 

No one on the team was immune to trauma, and none of them expected Tony to come back with bells on, exactly as he’d been before it all fell apart. None of them expected him to improve steadily and without backsliding. They understood.

There were bad days. 

Really bad days. 

There were days when Tony could barely handle the sound of his own breathing. There were days when Bucky watched the man sabotage his own recovery, and wanted to shout at him. There were days when he did. 

There were days when the team set him off, and Tony went silent and walked out of the room. The voice simulator was active in all the suits, and the video systems were always on standby in the lab. They all knew sign now, which was helpful when Tony was so far gone that he didn’t notice he’d slipped back to non-verbal.

Those days were the outliers though, and a month after Tony came back to the Tower, they were decreasing.

Not gone, though.

When the team was too much, when speech was too much, when the bluster and bombast of Tony Stark’s mask was too much, Tony would retreat to his lab, and Bucky would follow. They didn’t talk, but Bucky got to sit at the table, and read on his tablet, and watch as Tony worked beside him. Watch as science loosened the grip that his anxiety had on him, and watch as, beat by beat, Tony would start bouncing in time with the music. 

Jarvis kept it loud enough that even when Tony slipped and mumbled a few words, he wasn’t sent into a spiral by hearing himself. 

Bucky declined the earplugs he was offered, accepting the painfully loud music as fair payment for getting to hear the little murmurs Tony didn’t mean to make. Slowly, Tony would lean into Bucky’s space, until he had his hip pressed against Bucky’s thigh as he worked. One time, he’d dozed off leaning into Bucky’s shoulder.

It was a system, and it helped. 

Six, or eight or maybe twenty hours later, without warning, Tony would cut the music, gesture the screens closed and start yelling to Jarvis that they needed food. Until then, it was Bucky and Tony, like they’d been for so many months. 

Those bad days became special for Bucky, because they were the only chance he got to spend time alone with Tony anymore. 

He loved them. 

He hated himself for loving them. 

* * *

Mission-oriented. 

That was Natasha’s joking descriptor of him. 

Really, it was hard to contest that. Bucky had always been at his best when he had a clear goal. Get Steve out of the alley. Make enough for rent. Follow the lieutenant. Follow the Captain. Assassinate the target. The rest of the world went quiet when he was on a mission. He didn’t get lost down dark paths, because too much of his mind was eaten up by the goal he was pursuing. 

When he had something to do, he was better. 

That was the only reason he got so happy when Tony fell to pieces. 

It gave him something he could do that had an obvious intention and goal. 

Not because he wanted Tony hurting. 

* * *

“Vanished early tonight, Sweet T.” Bucky said softly as he walked into the lab. Tony looked up, abruptly guilty and tense. “S’not a problem Tony, I just wanted to check on you.”

“It got, ah. loud.”

“Usually does when Thor brings out the mead or whatever that stuff is.”

“Steve’s...”

“Making up for lost time or something. Yeah. Tiny bastard woulda died if he had a drink and now the giant bastard can’t get drunk on anything else. Him and Nat were going shot for shot. Him on the mead, and Nat with her vodka.”

“Yeah, so: work.”

“Doll.”

Bucky hadn’t wanted to believe the team last year when they told him to give Tony some space. He thought they meant literally and was convinced they were idiots. Tony was  _ desperate _ for contact back then. But they were right in their way. Tony couldn’t let anyone close while he was silent. Not in any way that mattered. He could have sat in Bucky’s lap, and still kept himself at arm’s length in all the ways that counted. The team told him not to push closer to Tony. Bucky ignored them, tried to force the issue, and everything went to shit. 

Of course, if he’d done  _ exactly _ what they’d said, Tony would have never made the progress he had. More likely than not, Tony--and Rhodey with him--would have died during that mess with the Mandarin. 

“Steve.”

“What?” Bucky asked, startled from his mental wandering. 

“Steve. And Thor. They get loud. Got loud.”

There it was. 

It shouldn’t have made Bucky smile so widely to hear how Tony’s voice wobbled on the admission, but it marked progress, and that meant the world. 

“Got it.” Bucky answered, voice as even as he could. He left the air quiet, open if Tony wanted to expand on it, but didn’t push. Steve and Thor had been rambunctious. Like a couple of toddlers that got into a barrel of soda and a case of cookies. They’d been carousing and swaying as Thor taught Steve a drinking song from Asgard. Clint joined in. Then Sam. Steve bellowed about it being a team event. 

By the time Thor had finished the song about Loki and a horse that Bucky was hoping he’d misunderstood, Tony had vanished. 

Made sense, in retrospect. 

Should have made sense at the time, but even half a year into working with Tony, it was too easy to slip. 

But today was better than a month ago. 

Today, Tony admitted something set him off, even if he couldn’t talk in detail about what it was. Today, Tony took a deep breath from his refuge against Bucky’s chest, and mumbled, “Next episode?”

“Sure thing, Sugar. J?”

“Of Course, Sirs.”

* * *

Five weeks after Tony came back, Natasha and Steve conceded their mutually losing battle, and stepped out together. Dating. That was the modern word for it. A couple. And like all couples did, they spent most of their time with each other.

It was…. Good.

They’d fallen into each other while Tony was falling apart.

While their friend was alone in Scandinavia, while they had no proof of his health or safety except for Jarvis’ word, while their friend tried to recover from the way the team had so utterly failed him, they found time to build a romance. Sure, they waited until Tony came back before they owned up to it, but it had started before then.

Gingerly loosening his crushing grip, Bucky left the remnants of his phone in his jacket pocket and grinned broadly at his best friend. Steve’s nervousness vanished, and after a long hug, they pulled back for their usual insults and teasing. 

“All those nice dames I set you up with, and here you are with a Black Widow? Oh Stevie, where did I go wrong?”

“Jerk. Don’t let her hear you talking like that, Nat doesn’t need an excuse to remind either of us that we’re pushing a hundred.”

Bucky leered, “Maybe I want her to use her signature move on me.”

Another shove, but Steve was blushing like only an Irish boy could. Then he paused, and turned serious, “You’re not, uh, upset about it? I know you’re still rec--”

“Yeah yeah, I’m a real delicate flower, Stevie. You think I can’t get by without you around all the time to keep me entertained? Go on and get Nat and go on your date. I can watch four hours of How It’s Made on my own, you know.”

Steve went, awkward and excited, like he’d always been before any of their double dates before the war, and Bucky watched, confident for once that the dame wouldn’t duck out after half an hour. He should have had that all his life, not just after he got big. He shouldn’t have had to wait for a new century or a woman like Natalia Romanova. 

It was good. 

The team was healing with each other. As Tony went longer and longer between his bad days, it was like the team was healing with him. 

Bucky set the shattered phone on the counter, aware that Jarvis would order a replacement, and retreated to Tony’s lab and a night alone. Tony was at some business meeting with Pepper. Now that Steve had admitted where he kept going, there’d be more nights like this one. Dum-e greeted him from his charging station with a bee-woop and bob of his claw. Bucky waved and sank into the couch. 

Healing was good. Recovery was good. 

Tentative steps came first, sure, but they’d get stronger, more confident. 

Steve would finally have a relationship with someone that could keep up with him. Someone as tough as him. Someone who would fight him and push him and love him. 

Tony would retake the world, the team would get back to better than before, and it was good. 

* * *

It wasn’t love. 

It couldn’t be. 

Love was something built together. Slowly. Carefully. The first flare could distract a person, but real love wasn’t flash pan distraction. It was built piece by piece as a couple shared fears and hopes and kind touches and soft words. So it couldn’t be love. It was infatuation. 

A crush. 

It wasn’t even that. 

Whatever Bucky felt was for the man he’d come to know in silence. A man that everyone told him was shucking off  _ that  _ person to return to who he  _ really  _ was. 

Bucky didn't know that person. 

So no. 

It wasn’t love. 

It couldn’t be.

* * *

“Honey bear!”

Colonel Rhodes came to visit in week six, and Tony may as well have been back in a Nordic cabin for all the team saw him. 

It was like the man had a superpower. Ten, maybe twelve seconds after he crossed into the Tower, Tony smiled more, trusted more, laughed more. Bucky only got to see that light hearted, happy Tony for a few minutes. Then the pair would be off to watch the Knicks, or do aerial maneuvers over the Hudson, or race to see who’d get to pay for dinner at some hole in the wall restaurant they’d heard about. 

It was a good thing. 

It was.

Rhodey had apparently informed his CO that he was taking three weeks off - and since he had just saved the president, no one argued. He stayed with them the entire time. No, that was wrong. He stayed with Tony. 

For a couple days after Rhodey arrived, Tony floated, he was so happy.

He babbled about the next update on the suit, and then dragged Rhodey into the lab when the Colonel insinuated that the glitch in the Starkphone was because of an engineering error. Tony’s outraged squawk made the team laugh long after they’d vanished. 

Rhodey was the best medicine for Tony’s recovery. 

Eight days into the visit, none of them were expecting Tony to have a bad day.

That didn’t stop it happening.

The things that set him off -- and calling them triggers was one of them -- were simple to the point of boring, which wasn’t the worst part. That was the challenge of his triggers being things that the rest of the world considered to be universally good and natural. Sing Alongs were no issue, but drunken ballads were. Answering a reporter was easy, Steve directing Tony to answer a reporter was a time bomb. Nat had quiet talks with each member of the team about what they could do to minimize the episodes, and it helped, but Tony noticing them changing their behavior? Also a trigger. It was hard, but they all tried. 

Clint signed to a kid at a table in a restaurant they’d all piled into, and Bucky saw the way Tony went tense. It wasn’t instant, he didn’t go silent on them, but it was coming. For months, Tony-watch was Bucky’s job. He’d spent enough time with the man to see when trouble was coming, and it was his job to step in and help. To take care of him. To follow after and stay at his side until Tony was ready to face the world again. 

When they got back to the Tower, Bucky was sick to his stomach, caught between the thrill that he’d spend the night in the lab with Tony, and hating that it only happened because Tony was hurting. 

It was his job. 

Rhodey intercepted him on his way to the elevator, waved him off, and went to chase Tony down himself. Tony was back with the group, playing Mario Kart, and yelling about cheaters an hour later. 

That wasn’t the start of it, but it was when things got bad. 

* * *

The thing was, Bucky knew he had a few dozen problems rolling around in his head. He didn’t need a therapist to tell him that. He’d lived it and watched the opening chasms in his mind and in his heart and in his soul. He was well acquainted with the way his brain spiralled off into the dark when he gave it the opportunity. Even a terrible therapist would have been able to point out that BARF had sanded down the triggers, but hadn’t solved the more mundane trauma and psychoses. 

There was his need to do perimeter checks. There were the intrusive thoughts. He didn’t sit with his back to windows or doors -- which he maintained was purely sensible. He had weapons stashed in every room in the tower he frequented, and carried several more on his person. 

He had nightmares. 

He had flashbacks. 

He had tics.

He heard a kid crying at a restaurant and dissociated so hard his soup when cold before he snapped out of it. 

Bucky didn’t think he was some perfect soul. That would have been delusional, and since that was one of the few boxes he didn’t check, he wasn’t inclined to add it. He tried not to lie to himself. And when it was something unbearable to admit, he’d gotten very good at dissociating from it.

So, that night, not even eight weeks after Tony returned to them, and spoke to them, and began his recovery, Bucky forced himself to examine what was happening, and draw rational conclusions. He’d always been a smart man. The conclusions were obvious. 

Denial meant that he spent three hours in the dark of his room, trying to find a different result. 

There wasn’t one. 

Bucky was bad for Tony’s recovery. 

That was too far. He couldn’t prove that. 

Bucky wasn’t helping Tony’s recovery.

He was a feature of Tony’s mutism. He’d  _ made  _ himself a feature. He’d pushed himself into the man’s space, when everyone told him to stay out, watching over him, hoping he’d be able to draw Tony close enough to help. That was naive. No one controlled Tony Stark except for Tony Stark. He’d clawed his way into recovery on his own, come back alone, and every time he’d gone to his lab alone... Bucky had followed him. Pushed his way inside. Forced himself into Tony’s recovery. And it took hours and hours before Tony talked again. 

He’d thought - hoped - that maybe in a few more weeks, maybe a little more healing, and Bucky would --- 

He was mistaken.

* * *

It was a mission. The same mission. 

Take care of Tony.

Only the details changed. Before, it meant close observation, and staying nearby, and following when Tony was falling apart and keeping negative influences or triggers away from him. After he’d realized his presence was detrimental to mission success, the solution was obvious.

Tony’s recovery was more important than Bucky’s idle fantasy about a happy ending with a man he didn’t truly know. 

* * *

It would have been noticed if Rhodey hadn’t been around, and if Steve wasn’t still wrapped up in bubbles and giggles about Natasha. The Avengers were all on high alert for internal troubles and would have spotted the way he changed his habits, but it didn’t look like he was changing. It didn’t look like a problem. Rhodey was there, so it was only natural that Bucky would spend less time withTony. 

It hurt, but the Winter Soldier had long since taught him how to divorce from his own feelings. 

They would fade. 

* * *

Bucky spent an evening with How Its Made on the screen, paying no attention to it, tracking how his own decisions were made. It would be ironic if he made the same error in logic as Tony had. It would also crush Steve to find out he’d failed two friends. 

It hurt, yes, but he wasn’t hurting himself. 

He sparred and went to team dinners and planning sessions and he participated in game nights. He wasn’t removing himself from the team’s support.

This was different from what Tony had done. Bucky was sure of that. 

This was self care and mission compliant assistance all at once. Tony would improve faster, and Bucky would get over his feelings faster. 

It was a good thing. 

* * *

Rhodey left, but the lightness he’d brought to Tony didn’t. 

Their next press conference ran long when Tony went off on a tangent about the moral challenges of globalism. 

Tony did a late night show. 

He did a closed door session with the Senate Armed Forces Committee. 

A paparazzo got dressed down on the street, some teenager filmed the whole thing, and it was immediately viral on twitter. 

Tony was back. 

He went two weeks without a bad day. Not so bad he retreated to the lab, just slipped into terse sentences. Two weeks more without a bad day, and Bucky tested what he already knew. 

Numbed by weeks of ignoring it, the hurt in his chest had faded to something bearable. It hurt if he touched it, but that had a simple solution - don’t. 

Bucky brought Tony a coffee on the excuse he was saying hi to the bots before the post-Doom battle party, and clung to the opportunity to watch him work. He mouthed along with the lyrics, and bobbed in time with the beat. One had was tapping a rhythm on the table and the other was gesturing middair, manipulating the holograms of Steve’s shield harness. The change was clear in him. 

He was brighter. He smiled more. He was confident again. He didn't need a guard hovering over his shoulder, because Tony Stark was stronger than anyone else on the planet. He’d fixed himself. He’d rebuilt himself. 

Bucky didn’t know this suave, self-assured man. That wasn’t who he’d spent months sitting with in the Lab. 

He was happy for him. It was what he wanted for him. 

Bucky set the cup down, and the sound caught Tony’s attention. 

It was like someone dumped cold water on the man. Or pulled a plug. Or flicked a switch. Tony had already started forming a greeting before he saw who it was. It cut off mid inhale, and Bucky catalogued the way Tony’s hands twitched as he broke eye contact. 

It wasn’t the awkwardness of surprise, or fear, or a crush. He wanted it to be, but he knew better. Bucky got close, and Tony put on a mask.

“Just saying hi to Dum-e. J said you were out of coffee down here.” 

“Yeah.” It was terse, forced. 

Tony talked. He rambled. He soliloquized about competitors’ products and the villains they faced. It was only around Bucky he got like this. 

Greed whispered that Bucky wanted Tony, even if that meant the man was unhappy. It whispered that if Tony slid back into mutism, Bucky would get to scoop him up, take care of him, be the one he leaned on and trusted and let close. Bucky would be the only person near him. He wouldn’t have to share. 

Only one of them could have a happy ending, and it was best that it was Tony. 

“Right. Well, I’ll leave you be. Bye Tony.”

* * *


	2. For the Rest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So someone left a comment and despite the fact that I had to give up sleep I couldn’t seem to stop until I wrote this.   
So. Uh. Here you go?  
And remember: I write unreliable narrators.

“You’ve reached the voicemail of Doctor Mona Ahuja, I’m currently with another patient, if this is a mental health emergency, please hang up and dial nin--”

Tony slapped the button to end the call. 

He gestured, and Jarvis deleted the call record. 

Like it hadn’t happened, he picked up the soldering iron and resumed his work. 

* * *

Tony was back. 

He talked constantly. 

He rambled and ranted and lectured and digressed. He threw words at the world like he could build a wall from them. Like he could build a new suit of armor from them. Like nothing had happened and nothing had changed and the last few months were something he could sweep into the closet and forget.

It made the team so happy when he did. 

That first morning, sitting there with Bucky, terrified at the sound of approaching footsteps, Tony had wrestled into submission his instinct to flee, while leaning on Bucky’s confidence and strength to keep himself upright. The team joined them, and they were so  _ happy. _

They heard him talk and they obviously thought it was done. Problem solved. All better. 

They wanted it to be true, and Tony had caused so much trouble over the months. 

They wanted to hear him talk, and Tony didn’t want to disappoint them. 

They wanted him to be better, and Tony knew how to play the part. 

So anyway.

Tony talked. As much, and as often as they needed him. 

Considering the months long stretch where the sound of his own breathing put him into a panic attack, once he started, it felt too easy to talk. 

Like riding a bike. 

As much as the metaphor felt ridiculous to him, it helped him assign some grander form to his own failings. 

He’d been a serial monologuer for years, decades even, and it was only because he’d stopped that he lost his balance and crashed it. He’d lost the momentum, and it had been so long since he’d dared slow down from break-neck speed, he’d forgotten how to exist slower. Then he forgot how to get the damn bike going again. 

But he was up. He was back on the damn bike. Bruised a bit. Scratched up. Aching. He didn’t want to be on it, but exactly like a kid whose parents cheered him on, Tony wanted to keep the rest of the team smiling at him. 

It was easy, and he hated that most of all, because if it was that simple to talk, then he must have been faking it before.

So he stayed cheerful and smiled wider, and clung to the good he could find.

* * *

Bucky could see it. 

None of the others could, but sometimes Tony would look up and find cold blue eyes tracking the compulsive twitching of his hands, and he just  _ knew _ that Bucky could see it. Everyone else wanted to see the good. They wanted to see how healthy he was getting. 

Bucky had been there through the darkest points, had met him in silence, and didn’t accept the change at face value. He could see the lie. 

Maybe it more that the others were kind enough to act as if they believed the lie.

He didn’t know which. 

As much as Tony wanted to fall forward and let himself be held, he also knew that the two things couldn’t be true at the same time. He couldn’t need Bucky to keep him safe, and claim he was recovering. He couldn’t be strong enough to be talking, and weak enough to need him. He couldn’t be both. 

They could exist together in theory, but Tony knew that in  _ his _ head, if he wanted one, he couldn’t have the other. 

Mutually exclusive. 

Tony tried to hide it better, tried to mask it so not even Bucky would notice. 

It didn’t work. 

* * *

The team was helping him however they could. 

Tony was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew they were rearranging themselves for him and doing their best so that he didn’t catch on to that fact. Pointless really. He’d have noticed even if Jarvis didn’t have record of them talking. 

It was -- kind. 

It was, and it was generous of them after he’d been so impossible to work with for so long. 

They were good people, with good hearts, and awkward, prickly exteriors. And to be honest, they needed the win. The day to day missions of the Avengers weren’t the sort of things that earned them parades. It was a grind, and he knew they were buoyed by him making a visible recovery. 

Wasn’t that a mindfuck.

All those months convinced they hated the sound of his own voice, and now it was his talking that brightened their day. If he’d been a little bit smarter, a little bit more rational, if he could have thought like an adult for ten damn minutes anywhere during the last months, he’d have been able to see it. 

Instead he fell apart on them, stressed them out, weakened the team. He’d done his part during missions and firefights, but it wasn’t the same as when the team was solid. Looking back, he could see how much damage his silence had done to them, and about drowned in gratitude that they weren’t forcing him to repay them for it. 

They were all damaged, but none of them had every fallen to pieces like he had. 

Asking for more help made him sick, so he buried his reactions each time he saw them accommodate his weak points, and fought harder to be the man they expected. It was just words. It was just talking. He could do that. He’d done it for decades without noticing or caring. He could talk if it made the rest of the team feel better. 

* * *

The phone rang, and what little air he had in his lungs seemed to lock in place. No breathing in, no breathing out. Just stuck there. Stasis. 

“You’ve reached the voicemail of Doctor Mona Ahuja, I’m currently with another patient, if this is a mental hea--”

He slammed his hand on the table after he cut off the call and flung a gesture at Jarvis. 

* * *

Bucky wasn’t talking to him anymore. 

Bucky never  _ talked _ to him all that much, even when Tony was deep in his own crisis, but now it was different. Before, Bucky was quiet. 

Now Bucky was Not Talking To Him. 

It was more pronounced when Tony made an effort to be his old self. During the times when Tony would ramble, he could watch as Bucky retreated from the sound. And no, Tony didn’t think that Bucky hated Tony’s voice. He’d watched the footage of the man talking to the bots enough times to believe that, but that wasn’t the same as wanting to be around Tony when he chattered. 

It hurt. 

Of course it hurt. 

The only person who had been a comfort while Tony was silent wasn’t at his side anymore, and logic didn’t care when emotions got involved. 

Bucky came when Tony collapsed though. 

He trusted that. He had faith in that. Because Bucky knew.

When it got to be too much and the voices were too loud, Bucky still followed him to the shop and stayed at his side and waited until Tony felt better. That was generous of him. Very generous since Tony was starting to suspect that it wasn’t pleasant to be there for the man. Not anything obvious, but Bucky looked pinched and nauseous when Tony was relapsing. It could have been concern, but Tony had examples of what that looked like. 

This was different. 

But Bucky always came to help when things were bad. 

That was a constant he could trust in those first weeks. 

Until he couldn’t. 

Rhodes got there first one day, and Bucky let him. Tony pulled the tapes later. Bucky  _ let _ Rhodey get there first.

Rhodey chased Tony down. 

Tony didn’t want to disappoint his oldest friend, so he dragged himself out of the spiral faster than he wanted, clawed his way to vocal, and played it off like a minor stumble. Like it had been a quick hesitation.

It wasn’t. 

It was as bad a relapse as he’d had, but Tony couldn’t handle seeing the hurt on Rhodey’s face if he admitted that. So he didn’t. He could pretend a while long. 

Rhodey smiled so brightly when Tony gave him sass that it was better to lie. 

That night, Tony sat curled in the corner of the shower, signing an override code at Jarvis’ camera to keep him AI from alerting anyone about how far he was from better. 

* * *

The team was doing better. 

Steve and Natasha were the most uncomfortable couple to be around since there was no guessing on any given day if they would be octopus-wrapped around each other in the kitchen, or standing ten feet apart like they’d never met, but it was good. They were awkward people, but none of the Avengers had room to judge that.

Their relationship became a microcosm of the team’s dynamics. If they were happy, the team was happy. 

Tony sent them off on fabulous dates that both protested, and both enjoyed. Then he’d retreat and savor the quiet of the elevator, the quiet of the shop, the quiet of the penthouse. He’d gather it up, hoarding his silence like a reserve to get him through the next boisterous event. 

That worked. 

Mostly it worked. 

It had to work, so it did. 

Just. 

Not very well. 

It was easier to recenter, recover his baseline, to reset when Bucky used to follow him. That wasn’t an option anymore. 

He didn’t know what he’d done, but Bucky no longer came. No longer followed. 

So Tony had to be strong enough to do it alone. 

It would get better. Tony didn’t have another choice, so it had to get better. 

* * *

“You’ve reached the voicemail of Doctor Mo—“

* * *

Tony gave a lecture to the kids at Brooklyn Technical High School. 

Ironically, it was about speaking up. 

He told them how important it was as a young mind to be loud, to make sure that everyone heard your question because you would never learn if you never asked. It was stuffed with self-deprecating humor about his own habits. They were jokes carved from the icon of Tony Stark. 

Laughing, rambling, taking questions, Tony spent the afternoon and into evening with the kids, pushing them to take risks and be loud when they had an idea. 

It was exhausting. 

But it helped. 

They didn’t know him except as a character on the news, and they took him at face value. They didn’t hear the way he fumbled some of his answers. They didn’t notice that his hands started to shake while he cracked jokes about being the most talkative guy in the country. 

It was good practice for him. That was why he’d accepted the moon-shot request from the school. He’d seen it and he’d known that this was a thing he could do. The training wheel version of improvement. He could practice being Tony Stark. He could help some kids. 

Win-win.

There was a kid who started telling him about her newest project, an idea with solar powered salt water filtration - a member of the faculty tried to speed her up, encouraged her to edit herself, truncate herself, silence herself. Tony stayed with her for forty five minutes, asking questions that would put her on a more successful path with the project, and made a note to check in at the end of the semester. 

There was another kid who was shy. He didn't push forward like the others, yelling about his great ideas. 

So Tony pushed his way to the kid, and let him talk at his own pace. Terrified but brilliant, he made it most of the way through the explanations with a stunning blush on his cheeks, unaware the pen he was twisting against his hand had the cap off, and he was slowly painting himself blue. 

Always though, at the back of Tony’s neck there was an itch, like he was being watched and weighed and judged. 

The night was good for him. Even though he’d had two panic attacks in the lead up to it, and another half of one in the car on the way there, it had been the right choice. It was, quite probably, the first thing he’d done since he got back that had been for himself, rather than the team. 

When he got back to the Tower that night, weary and dropping into the comforting silence after all those hours stretching his limits, there was a shadow in the corner of the hall. 

Neither he nor the former Winter Soldier said a word. 

It was an acknowledgement, twice over. 

That Bucky had been there the whole time. 

That Bucky still knew it was a lie.

* * *

Without Pepper and Rhodey, Tony wouldn’t have made it through his twenties. 

Without the Avengers, Tony wouldn’t have made it through the last years. 

Without Iron Man, Tony would have conceded defeat long ago.

But he was needed. The team needed him, and they needed him to be healthy and whole. They didn’t need the shaking in his hands and the tremble in his voice. They didn’t need the panic attacks and the trauma and the PTSD and the itching, aching reminders of the way his voice burned in his throat and scarred his tongue. 

The didn’t need that. 

They needed him whole. 

They needed him healthy. 

He hated that he’d ever let himself be so weak. The idea of making them carry him further was unbearable. 

They would. That was the worst of it. They would. He could ask and they would help and he knew that. They had made it clear. Stunningly, painfully clear. They continued to make it clear. They had done everything shy of sky write it, and they reminded him of it daily. 

Big gestures and small. 

He knew the team was on his side and was at the ready to help. 

But to accept their help, he’d have to admit he needed it. 

And that was impossible. 

* * *

He learned one night, after another failed attempt at a phone call, that an unenhanced human could destroy the newest stark phone if they had proper motivation. 

* * *

It had been a month. 

More. 

Five weeks two days.

It had been so damn long.

Tony froze where he stood, hands awkwardly sunk into projections of the next phone update, eyes wide, and watched as the doors to the shop opened to admit James Barnes. He’d nodded at Jarvis’ query without thinking about it.

“My arm.” Bucky said it to the ground, voice soft. “I don’t want to bother you, but my arm is - Steve said I’m benched until it’s fixed, and I, I’d like to stay on the team.”

The outer fingers of his arm were lax, while the inner were curled in towards the thumb. An impossible position for flesh and bone, when it was made in metal, it still screamed of wrong. There were connections between all the fingers that mirrored anatomy; that was the best way they’d had to make it functional and usable by the Soldier’s brain. That didn’t mean that it was the same as flesh. 

Tony gestured to an empty bench, reaching for a set of tools when he realized he’d not spoken yet. 

Bucky didn’t like to hear him talk, but the other choice was to stay silent. Silent meant calm. Silent meant comfortable. Silent meant old habit. Silent meant leaning into Bucky and trusting him. Silent meant Tony would be on the cusp of the way he’d been before. 

And Tony couldn’t handle that.

Plucking a fine pointed tool from the kit, Tony kept his eyes on metal, and clawed the words into his mouth, ignoring the scrape in his throat, and the acid in his gut. 

“Natasha looked like she enjoyed the Russian ballet last week - I thought it might be weird for her since she’s got all that tragic escaped past drama, but it worked out. Steve was all sappy and staring for days afterwards. No one wants to know what she got up to that caused that.”

The words stung, but he forced them out, awkward as they were.

“Not sure where I’ll send them next. Maybe camping. It’s not like neither of them have ever slept rough. They’d be fine out in the wilderness. A bit of camping - well, glamping, it is me after all - would be good for them. Stare at the stars. Enjoy some fresh air. Get away from all of this. One of the islands might work. Grand Canyon maybe.”

Bucky made a noise at that, but Tony plowed on.

“It would throw off Cap’s training regimen, so it’ll take some persuading, but it can be done. And of course we’d have to send them on the jet in case evil decides to pop up while they’re toasting marshmallows. And cheese. That was always fun. Jarvis and Ana used to do that with me. We’d make a fire and stick bread and cheese onto sticks and toast them. Did that with Rhodey once over a Bunsen burner. Terrible plan. Tasted awful. One Star. Do not recommend.”

The hand that Tony wasn’t dismantling was wrapped around the edge of the table. Slowly, like a machine, the white knuckled grip grew tighter until Tony worried about joint damage. Then, one by one, indents appeared beneath each finger. 

Bucky hated this. Hated to hear Tony talking. 

Because Bucky knew it was a lie. 

But Tony couldn’t survive the alternative. 

“Maybe after the next press conference on ongoing security the pair of them can get talked into taking a trip. Not going to be fun getting them to agree, but once they’re gone, if we tell Clint that this is on, I’m sure that we can find something to do that dear old Capsicle would normally flip his lid over. Clint and Sam were talking about jumping off of things recently, and they do, constantly. Sam has his wings most of the time, but its not like Hawkeye can fly.”

He found the frayed wiring that had deadened the fingers. 

Bucky’s other hand shifted, and started pressing new divots into the metal top of the table. 

“I told them that if they’re gonna keep jumping off things without warning I’d either have to put them both in bubble wrap suits or I’d make Cap schedule a training session. Which, considering what it is that they’re getting into trouble for is likely to end with the both of them bruised and battered from all the times Cap found a way to stop someone from catching them. That’d be more fun to do without Cap around. If he’s not there to tell us we’re being reckless, we can do whatever we want right?”

Tony didn’t know what he was saying anymore. 

They were just words. Sounds. 

A vomited stream of them as he struggled to keep his head above water. 

The wiring was patched, the fingers were moving again, Tony was clipping plates into place as fast as his hands could move, trying to outrace the panic that was tightening his throat. 

“Of course if there was any permanent damage we’d all get our asses chewed, so we’d probably be better off doing this over water, right? That’d be safer for everyone. I’d say a pool, but I’ve seen how far Clint can throw himself when he really wants to. We’re going to need a lake. I’ll look into one. But there you go. All fixed. Fingers working. I’ll shoot a message up to Cap to let him know.”

“Tony.”

The word locked him in place for a breath as his facade trembled, and he threw hasty reinforcements around it. 

“No need to say thank you, easy peasy, nothing to fuss about. And isn’t today your normal evening with Steve, you should get going. Go show him how you’re fixed so he can take you off the naughty list. I don’t think we have anything upcoming, but you never know with the Avengers. Danger around every corner and all that. You have a great night.”

The doors wooshed shut. 

Tony calmly walked back to the table, and stood with his hands sunk into the holograms again. As if he could pick up without an impact. As if seeing Bucky hadn’t mattered. As if faking that had carried no cost. 

His breathing quickened. 

Tony fought down the hyperventilation, turning the schematic compulsively. 

The glass was blacked out, but the sound of metal plunking against it carried. Jarvis brought up a camera, and showed him the man standing beyond them, with his forehead and one hand pressed against the door. 

Every instinct said to open the doors. Every ounce of him wanted to gesture and invite Bucky in and beg him to stay and sign that he’d stay silent, and offer anything to have the promise of his company. But Tony couldn’t be both. 

He couldn’t be the man the team needed, and allow himself that weakness. 

He gestured. 

The camera shut off. 

Tony very nearly made it to the bathroom before he vomited. 

***

Bucky knew. 

So eventually the others would as well. 

Bucky hadn’t tolerated it when Tony was silent and pretending everything was fine. He wasn’t going to tolerate it when Tony was talking and pretending everything was fine. 

It was a miracle he hadn’t said anything yet. 

Tony wanted…. it wasn’t possible, but he wanted his friend back. He wanted whatever tenuous bond he’d had with Bucky. 

That wasn’t possible if he being around the man made him turn back into something broken. It wasn’t healthy for either of them if Tony was using him as a crutch. 

He wanted him back in the lab, on the couch, at the table, pecking at a tablet or watching him work. He wanted Bucky back, however he could have him, and Tony knew, hated it, but he knew he was driving him away. 

There wasn’t a level of lie that would convince Bucky Tony was okay. 

He had to actually be okay. 

***

Training was just as bad. Team dinner was exhausting. 

Steve gave a toast to Tony, listing how fantastic he was, and all the ways he was valued on the team. It was, obviously, supposed to make him feel better. 

It didn’t. 

Tony gave a toast in reply, words cutting over his tongue as he spoke them, each new breath like poison. It was funny, it was witty, it jumped between pop references as fast as he could say them. 

Everyone loved it. 

Of course they did. 

No one there knew it was a lie.

Bucky hadn’t come to a team dinner in three weeks. 

* * *

_ Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.  _

He paused the pen’s motion, and dialed the last digit. 

_ Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. _

The phone got half a ring, not the usual three. It didn’t go to voicemail.

_ Tap tap tap tap tap tap. _

“Hello, this is Dr Mona. Are you going to hang up this time?”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have - I - I’m sorry.”

“Sir? You’ve called this line sixteen times that I’ve seen, and you’re calling again now. You know who I am or you wouldn’t keep calling back. So can I ask why you’re calling me today?”

_ Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. _

“Sir?”

“I’m….” He set the pen down. “I’m not okay. I need help.”

* * *


	3. For Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is four and a half months late, isn't it?  
Standard explanations. Work. Original novel. Unemployment. Mismanaged global health crisis crippling my country. Just the usual stuff that stops writers from writing. Nothing unusual at all. 
> 
> You are probably going to be big mad about this one. I can't figure out where the angry is going to go but I will stand by the fact that none of them are to blame, so I'm hoping you direct the anger at me for denying them the easy road.

* * *

Rain fell in an even plod across New York, greying the air and blurring the skyline, turning the world from an open expanse into a small corner, where Bucky could sit, unbothered. He’d been on the roof patio watching traffic when the first drops fell. He thought it would be a quick drizzle, nothing more than a minor inconvenience, so he stepped into the corner, which was partially shielded from the wet, to wait it out. 

A few moments easily became a few minutes, and still he stood there, leaning into the wall, water starting to track paths along his clothes and skin. Minutes dragged longer, until he stopped paying attention to the time or the rain and his mind wandered. 

It was nice. The solitude. The smallness. 

It let him think. 

And when he touched on something he didn’t want to think about, he had hard-earned experience in forcing himself to forget it. 

Steve and Nat were out on a date. One of the art museums.

They hadn’t noticed how he was yet. That was nice. It was helpful that they were too preoccupied; Steve would be unbearable when he realized. No. It was going to be Natasha who noticed, once the pair stopped orbiting each other so intensely. Steve would mention Bucky for something, but he’d imply something bigger, and Natasha would look, and the Black Widow would see what the others weren’t noticing. She’d tell Steve, and then Steve would be unbearable.

Bucky was on a timetable, but he wasn’t screwed yet. 

There was still time for him to claw together something that would keep his teammates from panicking over his… over the… 

It was better not to focus on what he was becoming. 

He glanced to the sky, blinking away the rivulets that got into his eyes. 

It was cold.

Dreary.

Small, but heavy. 

The rain would stop eventually. 

Then he’d move.

In the meantime, he could wait.

* * *

Bucky kept his distance as much as possible. He didn’t go to the workshop. He chose a seat on the far side of whatever restaurant they went to. He didn’t get involved in the Avengers’ arguments about movies or vacation spots, or the best kind of pizza toppings. 

It wasn't because he didn’t have an opinion. In fact, he had to carefully balance his self-imposed isolation when Tony wasn’t around. Otherwise his best friend would be up his ass about his state of mind. 

No one wanted that. Not unless it was literal. Then there were large swathes of the population happy to volunteer. Which was a thing Bucky tried not to think about. 

His recovery from his time under Hydra was a miracle on par with Stevie getting big. He knew that. He was stunned on a daily basis that he wasn’t in a cell. He was lucky to be sane. Lucky to be free of triggers. Lucky to have been welcomed back despite the terrible things he had done. He attended every one of his six months of therapy sessions, and he got good at talking without saying anything that mattered. That was while Tony was silent. He never mentioned it. Then the sessions ended. He got better at forgetting the things his doctor said. 

The doctor wasn’t wrong, but everything they said seemed to tear open barely healed wounds. 

They made it hurt more, so Bucky didn’t let it land, carefully regulated what he mentioned in his sessions, and thanked the doctor when they finished.

He was a super soldier, made and unmade by sadists and nazis over the span of decades; no one on the planet had a reference point for what he had survived. Hearing that he needed to explore his trauma in a safe place just made him want to break things. Hearing that the way he’d survived was somehow wrong made him want to scream. The doctors didn’t know what they were dealing with. 

Of course they couldn’t help him. 

Survivalist instincts took Bucky to what he really needed, and it worked well, for a time.

Tony made it better. 

It still wasn’t love, or anything like it. 

He’d mistook his reactions for a while, but enough examination got his head wrapped around it. Tony was an icon in his mind. Something that he couldn’t abandon. Something to guide him back out of the darker wanderings his mind would take. Tony fell apart, and Bucky clung to that, because it gave him a mission. He expected it to fade as Tony recovered, and it did. 

Sort of. 

But Bucky now had the same reaction to Tony when he rambled as he did to Tony when he signed. 

It still wasn’t love. Infatuation maybe. 

The man was still the stupidest genius Bucky had ever encountered, nothing was going to change that. It was true long before Tony went quiet, it was true while he found his voice, and while he faltered, and while he healed. 

He was amazing. 

Bucky couldn’t keep making Tony the center of his universe. He couldn’t keep tying them together just to make it easier on Bucky’s various and indefinable issues. It wasn’t fair. Tony was capable of so much that he genuinely didn’t need other people weighing him down. 

Brilliance was like that. 

Bucky read it somewhere; most geniuses liked their solitude. 

Probably because other people couldn’t bring anything to the table. 

All Bucky had to offer was his own trauma. 

* * *

Bucky pulled back from what he’d allowed himself to want, because it was the right choice, and the best service he could offer toward Tony’s recovery.

Observation though, that continued. 

Tony had meetings and conferences and work sessions and training sessions and speeches and paperwork and design hours each week. It was a staggering amount of work. Tony managed the impossible through abuse of coffee, a disrespect for necessary sleep, and the fact he simply solved issues faster than anyone else. 

Bucky always knew where he was. 

Always.

He wasn’t _ there _ , he wasn’t watching - that crossed a line - but he _ knew_. 

If it was high risk and public, he’d slip into the back of the room for the man’s safety. 

If it was high risk and private, he’d make sure he was nearby. 

After the time at that science school, Bucky made sure Tony didn’t notice him. 

But Bucky always knew. 

When there were suddenly four hours a week, split over two days, that Bucky could not find the man, it was a puzzle. Three weeks later, when nothing Bucky did could track the man down on Tuesdays and Fridays, Bucky spent a day in the gym working through Steve’s reinforced bags, to stop himself barging into Tony’s office and demanding an answer. 

What he couldn’t stop was the need to see him after the gap. 

Tony always came back, face blank, and went to the main floor kitchen to make something with espresso and too much sugar. Like a ritual. He made himself something fancy. Drank it while staring into the middle distance. Filled a mug with black coffee, and retreated to the shop with a plasticine expression. 

Bucky watched it enough he was starting to guess what form of drink the man would make based on the subtle differences in his appearance. His brief stalking wasn’t something he could abandon. He needed to see him. Not a camera feed or a confirmation from the others, but see with his own eyes. It was supposed to be proof that Tony was okay. There was not a thing about his appearance that said he wasn’t. Twice a week, Bucky looked at the man, and couldn’t find proof of anything amiss.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t there. 

Bucky _knew_ him.

If he got closer, he could find what it was. Not because of vantage or perspective or anything like that. But if he got close enough, and pushed, just lightly, Tony would fall apart, like he did whenever Bucky was too close. 

* * *

Not an Avenger, no longer the Fist of Hydra, Bucky rarely went in the field.

The latter he didn’t miss, and the former he’d never had. 

It meant that Bucky agreed to Natasha’s request before she finished explaining it. Blinded by the thrill of getting to do something, to directly do a thing and know it had helped, he didn’t consider that he’d be away from the Tower, and thus, away from Tony, until the words were out of his mouth. 

“It should be just under two weeks. Communications blackout obviously, but we’ll have deactivated comms with us, and the bio-sensors.” Natasha explained, “Captain America insisted that we could take the sensors or we could take him.” 

Her smirk was fond, and Bucky laughed. The man was as ill suited to a stealth mission as Tony was. Stealthy approaches on a target, sure, but neither of the primary Avengers had ever heard of long term subtlety. It wasn’t Bucky’s primary skill, but he had alternated missions between showstopping violence and murder so subtle it was considered an accident. 

“Sensors are going to set off if they’ve got detectors in there though.”

“Low frequency, intermittent signal. They ping every few minutes rather than a constant data stream.”

“Reads as an error?”

“If it reads at all.”

Bucky acknowledged the value, “Is Steve gonna survive two weeks without you? Or is he gonna show up halfway through because --”

“Because he’s a golden retriever with the impulse control of a sugared up toddler?” She finished the thought, “No, he’s been told explicitly the consequences if he interrupts this for anything less than one of us being tortured for information.” 

“Right.” Bucky grinned. 

The pair were a good fit. Steve’s stubbornness couldn’t break Natasha’s intransigence. It would be good for Steve to see his girlfriend could go off on her own and come back safe. It would reinforce what the man already knew, and prove that Captain America could stay on the bench sometimes. 

It would be good for them, and it was only two weeks. 

It was. 

It would be so good for Steve.

The thought Bucky couldn’t handle was simmering under his enforced fixation on his best friend. If he touched it, he’d shatter. 

Steve would be thrilled Bucky was going to watch Nat’s back, and thrilled Nat was there to watch Bucky’s. Good system, and the promise of activity was a siren’s call in his mind. 

It was only two weeks. He went longer than that while Tony was off in Europe. 

He could do this.

And if he did well enough, Steve might bring up Bucky joining the Avengers. Which would be a welcome change in his life. A new focal point. It would give him a reason to get out of bed in the morning other than spite. It would get him used to spending time away from the Tower, away from Tony. It would train him to care less, and maybe he’d get to a point where he could consider stepping back the way he really should. 

That was the best thing he could do, and he understood that. Abstractly. 

The idea of actually following through on it made his stomach roll. If he was gone and Tony needed him, he wouldn’t know. If he was gone he wouldn’t be able to confirm that Tony was still recovering. Still getting better. Going on this mission with the Widow was the start of that road, and knowing it was the right choice didn’t make it hurt any less. 

“It’s only two weeks,” Natasha interrupted, “He’ll be fine.”

She didn’t specify who she meant. 

* * *

They won the day. They returned to the tower. The team held a party. 

Tony argued with Steve over something ridiculous.

Bucky’s resolve cracked. 

It wasn’t just the man he met in silence that he wanted. It was all of him. The silent, soft, shattered one he knew, and the invincible braggart he was learning. 

He couldn’t remove himself, and keep away from Tony forever; he’d go crazy. Like taking away the sun. He couldn’t stop caring; that was wired into his heart. He couldn’t stop helping.

Wanting to help, at least. 

Tony did fine as long as Bucky didn't get too close. 

It wasn’t ideal, this hovering in the shadows nonsense he resorted to, but the other option was unthinkable. 

* * *

Tony flinched when Bucky got close, and no one noticed, except for the pair of them. They stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by their friends, and no one noticed that Tony was one wrong word from collapse. 

Because Bucky wanted to be near him, and gave in to the impulse because he thought his friend looked sad.

Tony fled. 

Bucky retreated, and promised himself he’d stop in every language he knew.

* * *

“Oh come on, Buck, you haven’t hung out with the team in weeks. Just come for the start of it, so Clint’ll stop joking that I put you back on ice.”

Those jokes always pissed Steve off. Clint, Bucky, and Sam thought they were hysterical. 

He went to the common room for the movie, firm with himself that he wouldn’t waver. 

He spent the night watching Tony instead.

* * *

He took a short recon trip with Sam. Swore that when he got back, he would use it as a new lease, and stop obsessing. 

* * *

He saw Tony signing without realizing he was doing it. 

He broke his promise yet again.

* * *

Wherever Tony went twice a week, it was unpleasant. There weren’t bruises. This wasn’t a secret fight club or a blackmailer or anything nefarious. 

Weeks of watching were proof of it, though. 

It was more subtle than physical violence. 

Until there was evidence of something Tony couldn’t handle though, he’d stay where he was. He could do that, at least. He’d keep his watch from the cove in the wall which kept him out of sightline. Tuesdays and Fridays, mid afternoon, this was his post. Silent, and watching, confirming that nothing had happened during the absence. 

Then he went back to his more deliberate avoidance. This was the small taste he used to motivate the rest of the week.

It wasn’t good for him to keep looping back to Tony so much, but he couldn’t stop. Or, maybe it was better to say he wasn’t going to stop. He had stopped before, but never for long. He was too weak to carry through on what he could tell was the right choice. 

Except, when his mind drifted into dark places, he found his way back because of those moments. It wasn’t fair to hang that weight on Tony, to ask that of him, not when he was dealing with so much already. He couldn’t ask Tony to heal and also carry the responsibility of Bucky’s recovery. He knew that. 

This was a stupid thing he did, but he’d promised himself he could have it as long as he left Tony alone. That eye of a needle, that was the loophole he allowed himself. Observation without contact. 

Then there was a Friday, in week six, when the elevator doors opened, and Bucky’s vows evaporated. 

* * *

“Oh God. What happened, Tony, what’s wrong? Let me help, please.”

He took a stumbling step forward, arms outstretched, unsure how to help.

Tony looked like he’d been run over by a metaphoric truck, and a non metaphoric bicycle. He was flushed, amped up on adrenaline, twitchy, uncomfortable. His clothes were rumpled, and his eyes were shot red. 

For a moment, a breath, Bucky saw the shivering need in Tony’s eyes. He could help that. He could fix that. He could. Would. Even if it made Bucky’s brain boil afterwards. If Tony needed him that then he’d--

Weakness snuffed out, and vulnerability snapped into the inverse. It closed off like a safe slamming shut. 

“Oh, Fuck _ off _, Barnes.” Tony shouted in a building roar, throwing himself backwards to keep from being touched, “I don’t need you helicoptering around like I’m about to fall apart. I don’t need you showing up to keep an eye on me whenever I leave the damn Tower. I’m not a kid. I’m a fucking adult and I can handle myself.”

“I know you can,” Bucky tried to explain, but it was like trying to stop an avalanche.

“What? Just because you’ve seen me when I’m a sobbing mess? When I couldn't talk except in sign? You think you need to babysit me all the goddamn time? You think I want you around just because you were there when I was fully fucked in the head? Huh? That why you’re always lurking in the shadows, using all your Hydra skills? So when I fall down you’ll get to see that too? Just waiting to see how long I’ll last without you holding my hand?”

“No, Tony, I just--”

“You can fuck off with that. You and the rest of the team can fuck off. I don’t need you babying me. I don’t need you fucking changing everything so you can accommodate my damn feelings. My issues are my problem, _ mine_, not yours, and I don’t care if you think I’m doing it fucking wrong, they’re _ mine_, and I swear to God, Barnes, I swear to you, if you don’t stop, I am gone.”

The rant wobbled in and out of vocal, Tony losing track of himself and signing random words in the middle of sentences. 

“I don’t need you. I don’t need you hovering and waiting for me to fall the fuck apart so you can be the knight in shining _ arm _ who leaps to my side whenever I’m a disaster. I don’t need you when I’m up here, and I don’t need you when I fuck up. I don’t need you. I don’t fucking need any of you. I fucked up, I know that. But I’m the one that got myself out of it, not you. So stop acting like you’re gonna save me. Stop acting like you want to be around me. You only show up when I’m like this, like you’re fucking thrilled that you have someone to save. Fuck off, Barnes! That’s not what you do. You’re the fucking Winter Soldier not a damn nanny. You don’t help people, you - you - just _ fuck off _.”

Bucky’s hand twitched, mumbling a sign of the man’s name. 

He couldn’t speak. 

Ironic, that.

Tony faltered at the end of it, spun on his heel, and vanished into the stairs while the last words still rattled through Bucky’s head. 

* * *

Bucky and Steve had plans that night to introduce Natasha to the finer points of baseball, specifically the details of exactly why the Yankees deserved to rot in hell. Along with the White Sox. And the Red Sox. And probably the Dodgers for their move to LA, but they’d be out of teams they could support if they did that, so they’d swallowed the bitter pill, and bought new gear. 

That was the plan. 

The Dodgers were playing the Yankees on a Friday night, and they were going to watch the game from the common room with enough snacks to sink a ship. 

If he cancelled, or bailed, they’d notice. Natasha would notice. 

He couldn’t handle answering their questions, or seeing how sad it would make Steve. 

So instead of wallowing in it, he used the echo of Tony’s anger as a scalpel, and dug it through his bad habits. It was as good a goad as anything. It was necessary. Had been for a while. This was something he should have done weeks back, when Bucky noticed that he was saddling a recovering man with his need to have a purpose. 

He could have found a mission and done this out of the Tower, where he could fall to pieces unseen, over the course of long nights. Instead he did it in the space of a few hours, all at once. 

Like a bandaid. 

That was what people said was the better way. 

All at once, he cut apart the way he reached for Tony when he ached, and cauterized the wound it left behind. 

He was off his stride when he dropped into the armchair with the vat of popcorn and a case of beer, hollow and aching in his chest, cold with every reminder of what he was trying to release. Fortunately, even so many months after Hydra had been scraped out of his mind, the team knew he had bad days. Steve and Nat saw he was twitchy, and didn’t make it a big deal. 

Given enough time, it _ wouldn’t _be a big deal. He didn't blame Tony for saying it. The tone was painful, but Bucky knew about mood swings during recovery. Most of it was exaggerated by emotion, but the root of it was always real. 

Tony wanted to be left alone. 

Bucky could do that. 

He’d been trying to give Tony that for weeks, and only failed because he was weak. Because he wanted. 

He’d find something else to keep him centered, find a new North to aim his compass, and it would be fine. 

And until it was true, he’d pretend it was. 

* * *

It was still a facade the next day.

All over the tower, phones and watches and starkpad screens flashed red with the alarm’s blare before bringing up information on the situation. 

Bucky scanned through it, half distracted as he hauled into his uniform. Wrecking Crew was tagged as they approached Madison Square Garden, and the police knew better than to wait to call for backup. This was why the city tolerated the Avengers. He wasn’t a full member, but against that many heavy hitters on the side of the bad guys, no one was going to imply he could sit it out if he was feeling off his game. 

Slipping in the comm unit, the sound of Steve’s orders centered him. The team checked in, calling their eta to the jet. 

“We’ll save you something to do, Capsicle, wouldn’t want you to get left out of the fun.” Tony taunted, with the sound of repulsors in the background, no indication he was anything less than fully recovered.

“Unless you tarry with the others!” Thor laughed. 

The flying members were doing as expected, flying ahead. Sam stayed on the jet for the sake of tactics. He and Nat were the last to throw themselves into the jet, and the team was airborne before the door closed. 

* * *

“I’m fine, Stevie, motherhen your girlfriend, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” He pushed his friend hard in the chest to get him to stay put. The man was nothing if not dogged. Steve bit back his comment, and let it slide. 

“Fine, jerk. I’ll see ya tomorrow afternoon in the gym.”

Bucky waited until the elevator doors closed on Steve’s frowning exasperation before he slumped into the wall. The pain radiating from his legs was decreasing, but it was years since he’d needed to walk off an injury that severe. Fractured femur on the left and a mildly broken fibula on the right, assuming his read was accurate. A couple of cracked ribs to top it off. Nothing was compound, nothing broke skin, and it was nothing he needed to report. 

“Mister Barnes?” Jarvis queried, “Your heart rate and temperature are elevated, and you are showing low grade shock symptoms. Shall I inform medical of your imminent arrival?”

Right. Jarvis was active in the halls, and therefore watching. 

“It’s fine, Jarvis. Thanks.” 

“I am, as you may be aware, familiar with the particular tone that members of the Avengers team use when they are determined to mask an injury. Sir, in particular, is a known culprit.”

“I’m fine.” He walked smoothly into his room, dropping into a chair with a silent groan now that the camera was blocked and Jarvis was reliant on the mics. 

After a few hours, the serum had healed enough of the fractures he could make it to a shower. Another few hours, and he was back at his kitchen table, breathing through the bizarre sensation of his bones knitting together, and trying to eat enough calories to keep the process going. If he focused hard, it was enough to keep him from thinking about why and how he’d gotten injured in the first place. 

How he’d done something stupid, just to prevent Tony from doing the same. 

* * *

Bucky startled when the bottle clunked against the table, lifting his head from where he’d cradled it beside the pile of protein bar wrappers. The deliverer was gone before it occurred to him to look away from it from the delivery. If that wasn’t an indicator of his sub-par state of mind, nothing was. He’d been snuck up on by someone with vodka. 

Oh, that was the good vodka.

He’d been snuck up on by a Black Widow. 

That was a little less shameful then. 

She returned a few minutes later to unpack a tray. The shot glasses were set beside the bottle. A teapot. Two delicate porcelain tea cups joined them. She filled all four with their respective drink. With a bluntness that negated the grace she used against a mark, Tasha set one of each in front of Bucky, and leaned forward across the corner of the table. 

Bucky knew he wasn’t thinking at full speed, but he didn’t understand what she was planning.

“Natasha?”

“Which are we starting with, Barnes?”

“I don’t—“

“Are we going to drink tea and talk, then drink the vodka to ease whatever it is? Or are we going to take shots until you can talk, then make a new pot of tea when you’ve run out of confessions to share?”

He straightened, careful that he didn’t wince when his entire left side protested the action. “I don’t remember inviting you in, and I don’t know why you think I’m gonna confess something to you.”

It was fortunate that he knew what to look for in a Widow. He would have missed it otherwise. She flicked her eyes to the side, her even breath pattern stuttered as she held for a moment, and her lips tightened. Gone in a second, it stopped his rising anger. 

She was more upset than she was comfortable allowing anyone to see. 

“Natasha, are you alright?”

She whipped back to look at him, frustration obvious, “_I’m _ fine. _ You _aren’t. So which order are we doing this? Because I watched as someone I care about tore himself apart because he didn’t want to burden us with it or whatever idiocy was in his head, and I stayed silent because I was afraid I might make it worse, and I’m not going to do it a second time, Barnes! Vodka or tea?” 

“Those my only choices?” he drawled.

“There’s a third, but you won’t like it.”

“You sure about that?”

She swallowed. Stared without blinking. Delivered her ultimatum.

“You can talk with vodka, you can talk with tea, or you can talk with Steve.”

His mind slammed to a stop. He didn’t expect that. Natasha was offering the option to take the least unpleasant version of this, where he could keep his secrets from those who’d be hurt the most by them. 

“He doesn’t know?”

“Not yet.” That was a silent threat. 

Bucky nodded, looking back to the cups. He took the shot closest to him, then took hers. He chased it with a heavy drag from the bottle, picked up his tea, pushed hers closer to her, and leaned into the back of the chair.

“If we talk here, Steve doesn’t hear about it?” Bucky asked. At her assurance, he conceded, “What do you want me to talk about then?”

Natasha’s voice shifted, losing the polished curves of her public voice in favor of a curt, forward tone. It was a kindness. She wasn’t making this a game. She was telling him that she’d speak plainly, and so could he. 

“What you did today was stupid.”

“Yes.”

“If you know that, why did you do it?”

Instead of directly answering, Bucky tilted his head to ask, “Hey J? How long has it been since I was last in Tony’s lab?”

“Just over two months, Mister Barnes.”

“Thanks. And Jarvis? Privacy mode please, shut off the mics.”

“Of course, Mister Barnes, activate the panel when you would like my presence returned.”

It never hurt to be cautious. 

“You,” Natasha dragged the word like an insult, “didn’t take on Piledriver alone and get thrown off a building because you haven’t had maintenance on your arm.”

“No.” There was no sense in lying. She’d get the truth eventually.

“You like him.” Or she’d get the truth immediately. 

“Yeah.”

Natasha took a small sip. “He’s still recovering.” Like that was a reason to hope.

“Yeah, and the more he does the less he wants me around.”

“You’re imagining that.” She shook her head. “I’ve watched him.”

“Like you watched him before?”

“This is different. You’re afraid, so you’re imagining it.”

“I’m not. Tasha. He told me himself.”

Both of them had dropped the lies, and the pretense of manipulation. They’d shed the spycraft and the careful phrasing. They were being blunt. Honest. 

So she didn’t question him on it again. She didn’t ask if he misunderstood. 

“So were you an idiot today because you’ve lost him?”

Bucky winced. It wasn’t that. Not in the way she said it. 

“I don’t have... a mission.” It wasn’t quite the answer, but it was the best he could find. She was the one who called him mission oriented, so it was the easiest descriptor.

“That’s not what you really mean, is it?”

“No.”

“James.”

“It helped. When he was still... You know some of what it’s like to break away from... what we left behind. I get lost. I start to remember things, and suddenly I realize I haven’t moved in nine hours.” Or twenty two, but he wasn’t going to mention the worst days, “But if I have a mission…”

“He’s a person, not a mission, and if that’s how you think about him you need to step back.” Compassion that wasn’t part of facade sounded uncomfortable for her. 

“No. It’s, that’s the shorthand. He’s not a mission, I know that, he’s -- I don’t have a word for it.”

She watched him, not pushing, but waiting. 

Eventually, chewing through every word he could think of, he dragged a few to the front of his mouth. “Kept me… grounded, I think. Like I couldn’t get lost in my head because he gave me a reason to come back up and pay attention. Kept me tethered? Maybe that's the way to put it. Cause if I didn’t, he might fall apart on us, so I had to stay… present. He doesn’t want me doing that now, so I--”

“You can’t replace taking care of him with an adrenaline high in the field, that’s idiotic. You can’t go suicidal, no matter how passive you might be about it, because you think he doesn’t want you around. You can’t do that Barnes. You can’t do that to him, or to Steve, or to yourself.” She pulled no punches. 

He jolted, trying to explain fast enough. 

“I swear it wasn’t that. I didn’t survive Hydra just to off myself over a broken heart,” He winced, wanting to correct that word choice, and worried to draw attention to it, “You’re gonna like what I was doing even less.” 

They drank their tea until Bucky managed to say it. 

“I know I can’t make him carry my issues. I already made that decision. But when he was silent, I wrapped up all my issues with all of his, like if I could get him better it would mean I was too. I’m trying to stop. That. Doing that. I am. I’m trying to do better. I pulled back already. I stopped - I’m letting the rest of you take over for me, I guess. Rhodey and… anyway. I thought I was getting better at it. But he was about to take on Piledriver, and I couldn’t let him get hurt, and I wanted to protect him, and before I realized it, I was doing it again. Taking over because if I could save him, I could save me.”

“Tony Stark has a suit of armor. He’s been a superhero - alone and with the team - for years. He doesn’t need you to come save him.”

It echoed with what Tony had yelled. 

Tony didn’t need him. 

Bucky nodded. 

Drank his tea. 

He knew that, he just couldn’t seem to stop inserting himself anyway. He wanted to be needed. No. He _needed_ to be needed. He needed something to tether to, to anchor to, to use as his light in dark places. It couldn’t be Tony, not anymore, not now that Tony asked - _ told _him to stop. He needed something though. Without it, there was nothing but the hollow, empty dark that lingered in the back of his mind. He wasn't fit to be an Avenger. He needed to do it right. Maybe if he left he could find something. 

There was a difference, in his own thinking, between leaving because he was waffling around a choice, and leaving because he was asked. He could tolerate it now that it was what Tony wanted. Because the choice was out of his hands. Tony wanted him gone, so all Bucky had to do was obey. 

He wasn’t an Avenger, the team would be fine. 

Steve would whine, but Nat would help with that. 

Bucky wouldn’t like it, but that didn’t mean it was wrong. He wasn’t getting better while nothing truly changed, and realistically, leaving was the healthiest possible choice. 

Horrible. Nauseating. Like trying to tear off his own arm.

Healthy rarely aligned with pleasant when it came down to it. 

“I need to leave.” The revelation hurt less once it was spoken, as if he’d cast the dice. 

Damn. 

Once he heard it, the rightness of it was impossible to deny. 

No one else could fix him. No one else could build a new foundation. It had to be him. He’d immediately understood when Tony vanished with the videos. Sometimes the answer could only be found in solitude. 

He laughed a broken sound, remembering his reading about geniuses. He wasn’t one, but he could take the lesson to heart. 

“Barnes,” she interrupted the start of his spiral, “Just because he doesn’t need you, doesn’t mean he doesn’t _ want _you. Talk to him, he’ll listen, and the two of you. Bozhe moy, you’re both a mess, but you _want_ to be together, and if you will try, you can still have that.”

“I’m more’n willing. But I’m not going to push him for it. Not right now. Even if he said yes, it would hurt him more, and I won’t do that to him. I won’t let him hurt just to make me feel better. He doesn’t owe me that.”

The room was still. Tense. She didn't like his answers. He didn’t like her optimism. Neither of them enjoyed this type of talk. Certainly not with each other. 

“You’re an idiot. He wants you just as much as you want him.”

Bucky laughed until tears welled in his eyes, and finally managed to say, “Tuesday, half past two, meet me here. I’ll show you.”

“You’re wrong,” she scoffed, confident, “if you think he doesn’t want you around.”

“No,” he denied, reaching for the vodka to fill his now empty teacup, “I’m not.”

* * *

The door to the stairs was on a mechanical arm, and closed gently, a soft click that may as well have been a gunshot for how it cut through his chest. 

For the sake of showing Nat, he’d tried again, gentler than the last time he’d seen the man. He only said hello from a chair as Tony headed for the espresso machine. Casual as he could be. Without any pressure.

In response, Tony said -- well.

Bucky owned knives that didn’t cut that deep.

Natasha stepped out of the corner where she’d been hiding, grief barely restrained on her face. The guilt, she didn’t try to mask. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Bucky nodded, oddly curious how this felt so surreal and yet so familiar at the same time. Like reopening a wound, rebreaking a bone, tearing himself open so he could heal properly this time. 

“What can I --” Natasha stopped, off her game, “Do you want to spar? I can show you how to bake those cakes I made for Steve? Or I can - I could --”

She didn’t know how to help. 

He appreciated that. Even a Black Widow couldn’t figure out how to plaster over the problem and make it into something else. It wasn’t just him. It really was as bad as he felt it was. 

He didn’t repeat it, not then. It wouldn’t help. But this had been coming for a while, this road that started when Tony returned, having found his voice amid the snow and the trees. The end had always been the same. He’d waited in his corner. He watched for something that would let him stop what had started months ago. He hoped for something that would give him another option. Another path. Another excuse. 

It didn’t come, and he couldn’t stay like this forever. 

He didn’t tell her he had to leave. He didn’t want her to talk him out of it. 

When she ran out of numbed, senseless distractions to offer, she set her hand on his shoulder. She had nothing else to offer. 

Bucky broke, deep enough, sharp enough, raw enough, that he let her hold him while he cried.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yell if you'd like, because I definitely hurt them as they're healing and that's rude of me. 
> 
> But there's six pages of dialogue for a very particular conversation already written for the next chapter, and the tags don't lie.


	4. For Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its long. more than twice as long as previous chapters. It's also a heck of a lot of emotions, for everybody.  
thank you to Song and Sierra for the beta, and Meph, always.

There weren’t many people on the planet who could properly understand the scale Tony was using when he said that something was the least pleasant experience of his life. He’d been through enough to know that his scale ran deeper than most anyone. 

No, wait. 

There were plenty of people in war-torn regions that knew about the bottom end of the scale. And non-war-torn, but still sucky regions. There were millions of people who knew a bit about the scale he used because while he’d plunged straight to the depths of it, they lived beside those things all their lives. And there were people who knew about the high end, bathing in champagne end of the scale. Just not a lot of overlap.

So, really, there weren’t many rich white Americans who understood his scale. 

Still, therapy was right at the bottom of Tony’s experiences. 

Not because it hurt more than surgery without anesthesia, which was the previous winner. That hurt more. That was physical and lingered with a searing ache that he struggled to describe.

This wasn’t physical, and it wasn’t the worst pain or fear he’d carried.

It was the worst because he was doing it to himself. 

Every other agonizing thing in his life was something that was done to him, against his will. It was something he could fight. Something that he was _ supposed _ to fight. 

Fucking therapy. 

He went, twice a week, to talk to a well lauded professional, who pointed out things that Tony already knew, but somehow managed to eviscerate his mental state once they were said aloud. When she could, she made Tony say it himself. Apparently it was better for him that way. 

Every session was important and necessary and mature, and he _ hated _that. Even worse than hearing it, he hated the way her comments slotted into place as true. Hated that these horrible revelations that felt like hot metal clicked into place and he couldn’t ignore them or pry them out of his mind. 

He hated that he was doing this to himself.

They were doing this LIFO order, last in, first out, a stack not a queue, and he wasn’t looking forward to when they got past talking about his temporary mutism and started dealing with the nuke, or Obie, or Afghanistan, or Howard. At this rate though, he’d die of old age before they got all the way back to Howard. 

It seemed like every time he’d found the bottom of the well of how badly he’d fumbled this, she would ask a new question, which would pry up a rock, and a new set of issues would be waiting underneath. Everytime he thought he was almost done trawling through his mutism, he’d find more to deal with. Every time he thought there was no where deeper to fall, he found a new trove of issues to explore. Or something. 

Metaphors weren’t his strong suit. That would be Iron Man. 

Therapy made him twitchy. That was the point. 

He hated what she said. He hated that he needed to hear it. 

He hated that she was right. He hated that it was helping. 

He hated going. He hated leaving. 

He really, really hated therapy. 

The first time, he suppressed his outward reactions so severely that by the time it was done, he was going into shock. So he went to obtain sugar, fat and caffeine, to get the shaking under control. It worked, Mona said routine was good, and thus, post-therapy dessert lattes became part of the process. He would make one, allow himself until the cup was empty to sweep his brain into order, and then return to working. 

It helped that Bucky was usually there. 

It helped because even though they didn’t acknowledge each other, and Bucky didn’t know where Tony had gone, he could pretend that his friend was there to support him. Shameful as it was that Tony couldn’t even turn to say hello, Bucky being there helped. 

Until the session when Mona said something which broke their delicate peace. 

She wasn’t wrong. She’d yet to be wrong about any of it. 

But Tony hated hearing it. 

He wasn’t mildly shocky after that appointment. His self control was shattered. He wasn’t restraining anything. He couldn’t. He was a mess. 

Bucky saw. Bucky tried to help. Tony blew up. 

He spent the weekend bracing himself to apologize. Practicing. He convinced himself that he could psych himself up during Tuesday’s session. It didn’t work. Catastrophic failure. Talking for an hour about how he needed to apologize was tantamount to an hour of listing the reasons why Bucky mattered, which was equivalent in his mind to the reasons Tony didn’t deserve the man. Then Mona asked another damn question that pushed all the crap out of the way, and Tony saw a truth he couldn’t handle. 

As he walked out, the promise to apologize was stretched thin. 

Bucky said hi, and the bow-tight spiral of Tony’s stress sent him lashing out instead. 

So. 

Therapy was the most unbearable thing Tony had ever experienced. 

And, somehow, still, the worst part was knowing he needed it. 

* * *

“Mr Stark, as you know, Elon Musk has recently written several op-eds in the Washington Post condemning you for not doing enough with your money and position. Any comment?”

Tony liked this reporter. They should be invited to all the press conferences, SI related or not. 

“Yes he has, hasn’t he? First though, you are?”

“Jess Chamberlain, Dallas Morning News.”

“Thank you for the question, Jess Chamberlain of the Dallas Morning News. Great question. Thrilled to answer it. Now I could list the charities that I fund and support. Or I could talk about the technology that Stark Industries donates. Or the prosthetics division for veterans and civilians injured during war, in and outside of this country. I could remind you about the Maria Stark Foundation, or heck, I could remind you about a minor side project of mine, you might have heard of it; Iron Man? But. I’m not going to do that.

“Instead,” He winked at her, “I’m going to remind you that because of the work I do, I’m not even in the top hundred billionaires on this planet, that Elon Musk has triple my net worth, and that he likes to _ talk _ about being an engineer a lot more than he likes to _ be _an engineer. Once he’s averted the apocalypse or saved the president a couple times, I’ll be happy to listen to his opinion on how I need to step up.”

The reporter smirked, delighted with his answer, both of them sure that this clip is going to run on every nightly show. 

“Yeah, who’s next? Uh, Qian? Yeah. Go ahead.”

Press conferences were easy. None of them knew him well enough to push at the weak points. They didn’t know where to hit, so he felt invincible. 

At first this sort of thing was a monolithic fear. Now that he was in motion, the press were the least of his concerns. 

“Thank you, Mr Stark. During the recent fight against the Wrecking Crew, there were reports of the Winter Soldier joining the Avengers in the field. Should we be waiting for an announcement about an addition to the team?”

Tony flashed a smile to hide his wince. 

“Ah ah ah. I’m in the wrong suit for those kinds of questions, Qian. This Tom Ford isn’t nearly shiny enough. You have anything else for me, or are we done here? Not done? Okay, Christian?”

He made it through the rest of the presser on autopilot, not that they noticed. 

That was why press conferences weren’t a fear anymore. Yeah, he fell apart over a single mention, but at least around strangers, no one noticed. 

* * *

Bucky didn’t come down to the lab anymore. That had stopped a while back, months, long before Tony fucked up. He let the others do it. He was still near though, and Tony could lie with the best of them, even to himself. The soldier was close by, and silence didn’t mean he wasn’t supportive. 

Unspoken, the lie lasted until Tony tore it down. 

The brief flicker of hope he felt when he heard Bucky’s greeting - because Tony had worried he’d already ruined his chance - burned away while Tony yelled. 

He didn’t want to. It was like watching someone else take over his body. Like it wasn’t him. Except that it was. There was no magic making him into an asshole. Magic made him silent. His personality made him an asshole. There was no excuse except his own emotional turmoil for how he looked at the opportunity to have what he needed, and destroyed it in a panic. 

He wanted that. He missed that. 

He wanted the truth that Mona’s awful questions showed him. 

He wanted to fall down and let someone catch him. 

But he couldn’t mesh the two. Strong enough to survive, and weak enough to want help.

And Bucky was something he wanted. 

His self-worth was something he needed. 

* * *

Two weeks. Four sessions. No sightings.

Bucky wasn’t watching out for him anymore. 

He’d backed off. 

Just like Tony told him.

Lattes were less helpful without Bucky nearby.

* * *

They got word on where Piledriver vanished to after their fight. 

Steve benched the Winter Soldier without explanation. 

It was the right choice. The Avengers took the man into custody easily, and stopped for food on the way back to the Tower. 

Preoccupied with devouring the pizza in front of him, Tony tuned into the conversation when Thor asked, “Did you keep our companion within the Tower due to his injuries? I would have thought him healed by now.”

“Injuries?” Tony asked. “There were no injuries last time. Except for Legolas tripping when we got into the jet.”

“Rude.” Clint retorted around a bite of cheesy bread.

“You did not see that the fall from the rooftop which the Winter Soldier--”

“It’s fine, Thor. He’s fine.” Steve interrupted around a mouth full of garlic knot, “No injuries. Didn’t need him for this one.”

“But from that height--”

“Thor.” Natasha used the tone that made grown men quake, then switched to something pleasant to ask about Jane. 

Tony knew a distraction when he heard one. 

He hated when they did this. 

He hated being reminded that he needed special handling.

He needed to be strong enough.

* * *

If he was a better man, he’d have already asked Jarvis, found Bucky, and apologized. 

It felt like a dam though. Or jenga. Pickup sticks, something. 

Again, metaphors: not his thing. 

Whenever he thought about trying, about speaking to Bucky, he knew that wouldn’t be the only thing he said. Once he started, it would be unstoppable. Just like before. Whether it would be panicked, desperate insults to push the man away, or a too-honest confession, Tony didn’t know. 

If he was braver, he’d have risked it. 

He wasn’t. 

* * *

Mona was wrong about what Bucky was to Tony. She had to be wrong. Because if she was right, then Tony would have shattered after so long without falling back on the support of the more freezer burned of the Tower’s resident super soldiers. 

Almost a month gone by without them crossing paths was, if Mona was right, too long for Tony to withstand. 

Which meant she was wrong. 

Tony could get through this without Bucky. 

He could keep getting better without him. He could recover alone.

Which was great, because if he could do that, he could start to think about the rest. 

He’d just keep going forward, and if he went long enough without looking back, eventually, when he did, there’d be nothing to see behind him. 

It was fine. 

Maybe once he got to that point, he could be around Bucky without immediately, instinctively, collapsing into his own weaknesses. 

But Mona was wrong. Tony was fine. 

* * *

Tony spent the first half hour of the Captain’s visit in the lab flicking glances over, awaiting an explanation for his arrival. Another half hour, and Steve’s awkwardly mundane conversation about the various dates he and Natasha had gone on turned to the real purpose.

“I noticed on the third day, Tony. I, uh,” Steve fumbled, swinging them wildly from the previous topic. 

“Proud of you, Cap. Noticed what?” Continuing to solder, Tony answered by rote. 

“When you were quiet.” Voice soft, the words were still a blow. “I just wanted you to know that. I know that we - that I failed you, then, and there’s a lot of reasons why that happened, but I didn’t - don’t - want you to think we weren’t paying attention. The Avengers are pretty dumb sometimes, but we aren’t stupid. I’ve been like that all my life, and if Peggy couldn’t beat that out of me, then I doubt anything ever can.”

“Yeah, sure. Makes sense.” Tony slipped, soldering two points together and ruining the circuit. 

“All we knew then was that you pretty obviously didn’t want us to mention it, you know?”

“Yeahuh.” Another bad solder. 

“I know that I failed you there, as a teammate and, uh, as your friend. I wanted to - I _ do _apologize for that, Tony. We failed you.”

“Mm.”

“Sorry, again, I guess. I know this isn’t - I’m not just saying this to make you look like that, and I’m not gonna drag this out, Tony, I promise, but it needs to be said.”

Tony twitched his head, kind of like a nod, unable to shift his gaze from the table. 

“It’s just that. I want you to know that I noticed back then, and I know I should have done more for you. I can’t go back and undo how we reacted. But I noticed, because you are my teammate and my friend, and I see you, and I don’t want to make the same mistake. I’m saying this because I _ see you_, Tony.” Steve paused, crossed the shop, and sat down close enough that Tony could see the Captain’s hands in open offer. “I’m saying all this, which neither of us are enjoying, because I see you _ now_. I know you aren’t okay, and I know you’re trying to act like you are for our sake. I want you to know that we don’t expect you to be, that we have your back, whatever you need, in public or private, and that you’re still going to be my friend, even if some of this is permanent.”

Steve’s hands vanished, and by the sound, lifted to scrub over his face. They came back. 

“Yeah, this is why we were so gun shy to say something. I’m sorry this is, uh, causing you so much stress. I’ll wrap this up, yeah?”

Tony couldn’t move. 

“There’s no pressure from us, okay? There’s no hurdle we need you to jump for our sake. You’re an Avenger, you’re our friend. You’re invaluable. We can never talk about this again if you want, or you can grab me, any time, if that’s what you want. But we have your back, Tony, always.”

Steve’s hands fidgeted as the silence stretched. 

“Do you want me to leave?”

Tony nodded. 

“Are you safe if I leave you alone right now?”

“Jarvis.” The answer was quiet enough that anyone shy of a super soldier would have missed it. 

“Okay, I trust you. I’ll see you tonight for the movie.”

* * *

Jarvis locked the shop down the second Captain America exited. 

He also shut off the soldering iron, closed out the programs, brought up a single tap screen so Tony could call Mona, and sent Dum-e trundling over to the coffee maker. 

Conscious of his breathing, Tony spun on his seat, and fixed his eyes on the weird shadow from the crane arm. His skin pricked and tingled as he wrestled his panic under control. They knew. He _ knew _ they knew, had known for a while, but the reminder was a fresh hit to an old wound. They knew, and he wasn’t good enough for them yet. They could see how bad it was, how far he was from the man he’d been. 

They could see. 

They were watching. 

Rather than comfort, Steve’s affirmation and promise left a pool of dread in its wake. 

He closed out the screen to place the call, and sank onto his couch, walking through his panic attack, trying to identify the pitfalls as he reached them. Recognition was the first step. One day, recognition might be enough to stop the attack. 

Today, it wasn’t.

* * *

Team nights had become a new level of hell. Nothing near as bad as therapy, but still pretty awful. 

Either the team was tiptoeing around him, trying not to step on any of his triggers - and dammit he hated calling them that - or they were their natural, raucous, boisterous selves. Both had the same result: Tony falling apart. 

And the cherry on top was feeling eyes on him as he fled, turning around in time to catch Bucky flinching away, not willing to make eye contact. Sometimes, just for a moment, Tony would get a better look, and Tony tracked how uncomfortable the man was. At first it was unbearable, but it changed one day, something like resignation visible in his face as he averted his gaze. 

It didn’t change the last step of team nights though.

He’d text Mona, a simple “Too much. 25 minutes,” so she’d know what they’d be talking about in the next session. 

* * *

“Please talk to him.” Steve announced as he walked into the shop.

Tony spun back to the projection instead of responding. Not more than two weeks since Steve had shown up in the shop for his last heart-to-heart, and he was back again. Only this time, he wasn’t nervous and stalling, he was nervous and rushing. He barely crossed the threshold before the words spilled out of his mouth. 

No need to clarify the pronoun. There was only one person in the building that Tony actively didn’t speak to, so there was only one person Steve could mean. 

“I know I said I wouldn’t be - I don’t -- you need to talk to him.”

“It’s not like he wants to talk to me, Capsicle, and I don’t force myself on people. Consent, it’s great, all the rage these days.”

“Tony.”

“Consent’s not just for sex anymore, Steve, didn’t anyone tell you? Between MeToo and, well, really it started back in the seventies with Women’s Lib, but there’s been some up and down since then. There’s a whole documentary about the mini skirt and how its been seen as a symbol of freedom for women, and then oppression, largely related to whether its socially appropriate. If a woman wants to wear a push up bra and a low cut shirt that’s fine, but if Hooters says that she has to wear it then it becomes a symptom of oppression.”

Tony had reclaimed this skill. He could ramble about meaningless things. He could fill a room with sound to ensure that no one looked past it. He could do this as well now as he had in his youth. 

“Or take what’s starting to show up on social media where people are arguing that you have to ask if it’s okay to divert the subject of a --”

“Tony.” Steve swished his hand through the projections, and Jarvis took it as a command. The screens shut down, and Tony dragged an expression of mock-offense onto his face. Faux outrage. “You need to talk to him, please.”

The stress lines around Steve’s eyes would never turn into wrinkles. He’d never carry his worries in a map on his skin. All the things they’d faced and fought, and Steve never looked worried outside of the moment. 

Tony stared, tracking over the visible stress, the slight creak in the Captain’s voice, the tension in his shoulders, the elevation of his breath. “Bucky fell asleep with his laptop open, and when I moved it for him, I saw what he was looking at, and Tony, you need to talk to him.”

“How did you get past the password?”

“He doesn’t have a password.”

“What do you mean he doesn’t _ have _ a--”

“That’s not-- Tony, look, I saw the page he had up, so I looked some more.”

“Nat is a bad influence on you.”

Steve didn’t take the bait, and yanked out his phone, opening his photos. He gestured, awkwardly, and Jarvis snagged the image to display in larger scale.

“I screen-capped this, and--”

Tony froze.

“J, give me his full search history.”

“Sir, that kind of breach of privacy would not --”

“Override.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tony’s eyes jumped around the list seeing words like 'apartments for rent', and 'travel abroad', but refusing to put them together. 

“Tony?” Steve reached out, then hesitated, asking in sign, “Are you okay?”

Jarvis brought up the data as Tony realized he’d lapsed into silence. He skimmed through the records, unable to deny the evidence, and the direction it pointed. He nodded. 

“Tony, I wouldn’t be asking, but I tried, and he won’t listen to me. He’s convinced that being around you is making it harder for you to recover. He’s convinced that he’s hurting you by staying here. I told you that I would stand by you, whatever you need, and I do, and I will, but -- I don’t know what happened, Nat won’t tell me, but I don’t think he’s right. I think you need him, and I think if you let him leave, neither of us are going to see him again.”

Romania or Belarus seemed to be Bucky’s destination of choice. Not a terrible call. He’d enjoy it there. 

“If he still wants to leave, I won’t be upset, and I won’t blame you, but Tony, come on. Are you gonna be okay if you don’t say something before he leaves?”

* * *

Tony burst into Bucky’s bedroom, with no memory of the elevator ride, or of leaving the shop. Or of overriding the lock on the door. Which seemed like a bad thing, and a breach of trust, and privacy, but Tony lost track of those fragments of guilt when he saw suitcases sitting half-packed on the bed. 

Bucky gaped at him, mouth slack and eyes glimmering, before he threw his head back and said, “Steve. Of course.” Talking to the ceiling, he swallowed, “I’m sorry, I asked him not to bother ya, but Stevie’s always been an idiot, and I thought he’d go to Nat first, so I didn’t…"

Looking down again, remorse palpable in the air between them, Bucky whispered, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

It was for more than leaving. Tony could hear it in the timbre of his voice. It wasn’t just an apology for leaving. Steve’s words echoed around the background of Tony’s mind, crashing into each other, impossible to sort. 

He meant to speak. 

He did. 

It would have been proof that Bucky could stay. It would have been proof that Tony was fine. That Bucky didn’t make things worse. That Mona was wrong. He just had to find his voice and say it. 

“Don’t go.” He signed. 

Grief shadowed grey eyes as they fell shut, and Bucky shook his head. 

“That’s why I have to. I’m not blaming you. I’m not. This isn’t because of you. I’ve got my own - sorry, you don’t need to carry that for me. But Tony, y’know I gotta leave, and y’know why.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Desperate, the words slipped free. 

“Shit,” Bucky crossed the room in blink, grabbing on to Tony’s arms, shifting to his hands, then brushing aside some hair, back to his arms, frantic, “Tony, Sweet T, no. No. It ain’t that. I promise. But I watch you, honey, even when I know I should stop, and I’ve seen you, Tony. It don’t matter that I want to be here if me being here is hurting you.”

That didn’t make sense. Tony was the one hurting Bucky.

“I’m not gonna do anything that makes it harder for you, ya hear me? Cause I’ve seen it. When you’re having a bad day, if I’m the one that follows ya down and keeps ya company? It’s so much longer before you’re feeling good again. I’m slowing you down. I saw how fast the Colonel pulled you out of it, and dammit, I know it’s awful and it’s greedy, but Sweet T, just cause I like having you to myself doesn’t mean that I should keep slowing you down when you’re doing so good.”

Mona told Tony that the things she asked him weren’t to teach him something new, just an effort to show him what was already there. He hated hearing that. He hated that she could point him to something that became miraculously relevant right afterwards. Goddammit he hated therapy.

Bucky was so wrong it was surreal. He wasn’t stupid, that was why Tony liked him, but he’d seen the evidence and he’d come to the wrong conclusion and the only way to fix it was for Tony to provide more evidence. The other piece. The one that required him to speak. 

Or sign. Bucky would understand. 

Tony had to break his silence on this, and damn Mona for being right about that. It was a blockage in his chest. A dam. Or a lightswitch. Maybe toothpaste was the better metaphor? All or nothing and no going back. A cliff’s edge. A leap of faith. A fall, with the trust that Bucky would be there for him. 

“You’re wrong,” Tony said.

“M’not,” Bucky countered, brushing the same hair from Tony’s forehead, “Like said, I’ve been watching ya.”

“You are, you’re my -- you make me not get better.” Tony tried. It wasn’t right, and Bucky’s face fell further. “No, not like that. You were there before. So I’m not okay around you now.”

“Yeah, okay.” Bucky stepped backwards, hands shifting uncomfortably, like he was contemplating abandoning the luggage and sprinting. 

“No! Fuck!” Tony scrabbled at his pocket for his phone, “Not like that. I’m terrible at -- This isn’t -- I can’t -- It’s not like that. It’s not just... I don’t want to get better when I’m around you.” Seeing how Bucky’s lip was tightening, seeing the rapid way he was blinking, Tony abandoned his dignity, “Dammit. Fuck this. She says it better.” 

He pushed a button.

“Tony? Who are you calling?”

“Therapist.” He didn’t watch the pride that overtook the grief, tapping the speakerphone as the call was answered.

“Tony? Is everything alright?” Mona asked, already alert, “You never call outside of your sessions, you text.”

“That thing, about the ladder. That thing you said before,” He blurted.

“About the path out of the dark to reach the ladder, and the effort it takes to start to climb? I know you’ve been thinking about it, has something changed?”

“Yeah, and the thing, what you told me about James? Bucky. About Bucky?”

“Tony if you’re this upset, I have an opening in --”

“No I just need you to... can you just say it again? Say the words again, the way you did before. Say the thing again, say it the right way.”

If she explained it, Bucky would hear it. He’d hear it and he’d understand. Tony wouldn’t have to trip over his feet trying to get it right. Tony was going to fuck it up, he always did, but Mona would get it right.

“When I said it to you the first time, you threw my coffee cup so hard that the ceramic embedded in the wall.” Her voice sharpened, suspicion creeping around the edges.

“Yeah but --” He flicked his gaze to Bucky, who was watching in confusion.

“And then when I attempted to reiterate and find a phrase that you found less troubling, you broke my favorite lamp with a repulsor blast. This is why you aren’t allowed to wear your watch during sessions anymore.”

“Mona, _ please _ just say it.”

“So, Tony, I have to ask, am I, perchance on speakerphone?”

“Can’t you--”

“And is Bucky in the room with you?”

Tony nodded in the silence that dragged after that question. Mona already knew the answer, because she always knew what was going on in Tony’s head. 

“Yeah.” Bucky answered when the moment lasted, and Tony couldn’t bring himself to speak again. 

“Mm, hello Mr Barnes. Then in this case, no. I’m not going to say it for you, Tony. I’ll see you at your session tomorrow, and I’m available for calls or messages if you need me before then, as always.”

She ended the call, and Tony glowered at the device in his hand. 

“That’s where you’ve been going, isn’t it?” Bucky asked. When Tony managed to nod with a vague sign about the days of the week, a rough, relieved gasp rushed out Bucky, “Shit. I’m so proud of you, Tony, and I understand why you… said what you did.”

If it was a dam holding back what Tony needed to say, the wall was starting to crumble. 

“You aren’t making it worse.” Tony mumbled, “That’s what I wanted her to say. But not, uh, that. The full. Dammit. She asked me a bunch of questions and I hated it, but one of them. You aren’t making it worse.”

“Tony, you look like you’re falling apart whenever I’m around, and you look conflicted and miserable. I’m doing that to you, and I don’t want to hurt you. It’s okay, Sweet T, it really is, I’m not mad.”

“Dammit, Bucky that’s not why!”

“Don’t lie and say you don’t get worse around me. I’m not gonna keep doing that to ya, just so I can keep ya around.” 

Phone back in the pocket, Tony squirmed in place, still standing two steps from a man who probably would abandon the luggage by the time Tony was done explaining.

The dam wasn’t falling fast enough. It was taking too long, so Tony had to knock it down himself. 

“It’s. Okay look, I am, historically very bad at talking about this crap, and then I was literally mute, and now I’m not, but I’m still crap at this, and Mona doesn’t know enough computer science to use the metaphors I really want, and I’m terrible at metaphors but you probably wouldn’t understand the computer ones either, so I’m just, okay, look, okay I’m just going to use hers. Look, she calls you, refers to you, and she’s right, even though I hate her for telling me this, but she’s right -- You’re my climbing harness.”

He looked up, and held onto eye contact. 

“You were there when I - yeah - then. Back then. While I was... You were there, and you saw how bad it was, and you stayed. And I’m, now that I’m trying to climb this stupid ladder - different metaphor - wait, shit, no, you need to understand that metaphor to understand this one. Dammit. 

“Ok. So it’s this thing about how recovery is a ladder, but before you can get climbing you have to get to the ladder, which is a separate struggle, and I got there? Mostly because you helped me. And the team. But the actual journey to get there, that was me, in the middle of nowhere struggling through all of this gunk and swamp and like, I don’t know, brain piranhas and typhoid mosquitoes or something. Awful things. Fighting Cthulhu or something.

“But I got to the ladder, right? You and the team, you waited, and then the cabin and the videos, and it got me to the ladder, okay? Got me to realize it was possible to get better. And that was great, and I even got up a little ways, to, I don’t know, prove I could do it? But then I was so goddamn exhausted, so I couldn’t keep climbing the thing. I just clung to the rung, and tried to convince myself that I was perfectly fine with where I was, that I was better enough, even though it was - it is - god it’s so hard to stay on the damn ladder some days and I know that if I fall I’ll never find the strength to try again. But you’re the climbing harness.” 

Bucky brushed at his eyes, then signed, “I don’t understand.”

“When I’m around you, I trust you to take my weight.”

“Sweet T.” This time he let the tears run.

“Not all of it, not forever.” Tony hurried to explain, “But I can let go of the damn ladder for a while, and let my arms rest, and let my - let all of me rest - and when I’m ready, I can start again, because you keep me from falling back down into the, I don’t know what that place is, Cthulhu’s swamp or something. That’s why I look like that, Bucky, and I’m sorry to put that on you. 

“You’re not -- I _ do _ fall apart when you’re around, I do take longer to come back, but it’s because when it’s anyone else, they - they - they - I rush for them, and they - you’re the only one who I let close enough to see how bad it was, so you’re the only person I trust to hold me up when I can’t keep climbing, and god, Bucky, it’s been weeks since you followed me when I was collapsing and I’m so tired, and I’m trying to climb and I’m trying not to bother you and make you hold me up because I know you don’t want this, but it’s - six weeks I think? and fuck I am so so tired of climbing, but you’re gone and if I let go now and I fall back to the bottom. Fuck, I’m never gonna manage to start climbing again. Please, Bucky, don’t leave me there to fall. I’m not - I can't - I'm - I'm strong enough and I don’t - Please, I don't want to be like that again.”

His voice broke, cracked, abandoned him as he spoke, battered by the weight of everything coming out at once. By the time he ran dry of words, he ran out of control, and tears dripped from his chin. Trembling, collapsing, exhausted, he started to fall. 

Bucky caught him. 

* * *

The floor was not comfortable. 

He was a billionaire, there had to be a way to create a floor that could be comfortable for two grown men sitting on it as they shuddered through the aftermath of a joint crying session. He was a genius. He could figure it out. 

Later. 

* * *

“Sweet T?”

Tony clung to the coffee mug, overwhelmed by the knowledge that Bucky knew exactly how he’d made his post-therapy lattes despite it never being discussed and despite Tony never drinking anything like it at any other time. 

“I wasn’t,” Bucky gestured to the open bedroom door and the half packed bags, “It wasn’t because of what you said, and it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be around you.”

“You thought you were making me worse.” Tony’s voice was small, all that was left after his explosion.

“Yeah,” Bucky admitted, “I did, but that’s not the only reason. That was my excuse. Can you look at me?” After a fortifying sip, Tony managed it, “Thank you. I spent a long while thinking about this, and just cause I was wrong about how I was impacting you, doesn’t mean that some of the things I worked out for myself are wrong too.”

“Bucky?”

“I still gotta leave, Sweetheart.” 

He was too empty for the admission to hurt like it should.

That made sense. Even bearing his soul. Even that awful, horrible thing, ripping out his pain and showing it to Bucky wasn’t enough. That was how it went. That was why it was good he had his media face reassembled. He could fake it all day long. The rest of his life. It would be fine. Steve would be a nuisance, but he could send him with Nat somewhere tropical for a while to distract them. 

Hands appeared and took the cup from him, holding onto him, grounding him, and then tipping his chin up to see where Bucky was kneeling. 

“Not like that.” He insisted.

Tony bobbed his head, willing to agree to whatever story Bucky provided. 

“No, hey. _ Not like that_. You’re not the only one in this kitchen with issues, you know? I’m not gonna abandon ya, hear me? Phones still exist right? You can still call me, Sweet T. Video Chat if you need to sign. I’ll pick up. I always will.”

Everyone said things like that. They never meant it. 

“Nope, don’t go thinking like that. I can see it in there. I’ll call you myself if I don’t hear from you enough. M’Like a bad penny. But Sweetheart, I went just about straight from Hydra orders to kill Stevie to taking care of you, and when I thought I was hurting you by being around? I kinda noticed a few… things about myself that I wish weren’t true. I gotta go deal with them.”

“Are you going to fight nazis? Because you should take Cap along with you if you are.” Tony quipped. 

“Tony, no, please don’t talk like you’re at a press conference. Not right now. Not while my snot is still drying on your shoulder.”

“Please don’t leave, I’ll fall.” That was a hard swing to the opposite end of the spectrum. Playful lies to uncontrolled honesty. 

Bucky swallowed. 

“You remember when you vanished for more’n a month at a cabin? This is kinda like that. I gotta get my head on right.”

“But you took care of me.” Tony watched the conflict play across Bucky’s face. The man tried to speak several times, words dying stillborn in his throat, various confessions and explanations and emotions flickering in his expression. After long minutes of effort, Bucky gave up, bowing his head. 

“I hated my therapist.” He finally tried. 

“I hate mine.” Tony replied, baffled. 

A soft smile pulled up one corner of Bucky’s mouth, “And if someone tried to stop you going to see her?”

The instinctive answer, gleeful celebration, was half formed when his brain processed the question. He hated his sessions, he hated attending, he hated how it scraped him hollow, and took a cheese grater to his brain. He hated it and he hated her more than anything, but, “If anyone tried to stop me I would put on the suit and blow them through the Chrysler building a couple dozen times.”

“Yeah. I never got to that point. So I gotta leave, so I can… I don’t know what I’m gonna do, buy plums, try yoga, visit a beach maybe? Just know that if I stay, all this,” he gestured at his temple, “it’s gonna get worse.”

“I hate this.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“Yeah.”

“I had my big confession dramatic soap opera moment, aren’t I supposed to get to kiss my guy now and ride off into the sunset?” Tony froze as he heard what he’d said, hoping that Bucky chalked it up to Tony’s public flirtatious persona. 

Bucky exhaled very slowly, lifting his head just enough to look up through his eyelashes. “Sweet T, good as that sounds, I don’t think either of us are ready for that yet. I don’t think I could… I want that, but that doesn’t mean we should have it yet.”

“Yet?”

“Yeah, _ yet_.” Bucky’s eyes softened further, and he rubbed his hand along Tony’s knee, “Drink your coffee, you’re still a bit shaky.”

* * *

Bucky left the next morning. 

Steve worked himself into a fit. 

Natasha dragged him to the gym to spar. 

Tony went to his session with Mona to talk about it.

* * *

Bucky called three days later from Andorra, explaining that it was the only European country he had never been to, not even as the Winter Soldier. Tony was so shocked that he called at all, he lost his words. Bucky rambled about how welcoming everyone was, and how good the ski slopes looked, and what he’d had for breakfast, and how the shopping was all duty free. He talked until Tony managed to interject and ask questions. 

Before they hung up, an hour later, Bucky smiled, and said, “You thought I was going to vanish, didn’t you? Drop off the Earth so not even you and Stevie could find me?”

“It wouldn’t…”

“Told ya sweetheart: bad penny. Just cause I gotta be away for a while don’t mean I’m leaving you.”

* * *

Steve was still high strung and intractable, so Tony went to Nat in a fit of frustration. The couple flew to the Maldives the next day. Rhodey came into town, and he and Pep insisted Tony join them for dinner. 

Five hours of conversation and four bouts of tears later, Tony was curled up in his lab, signing for Jarvis to place the chat call, certain that if Bucky even answered, this would be the end of it. 

It was predawn in Morocco, but Bucky answered, and they shared a sunrise in silent, signed conversation.

* * *

Bucky called from New Zealand, smirking as he wandered through the landscape until Tony recognized the location from the Lord of the Rings movie, and correctly named it. 

* * *

Mona brought up the subject of anti-anxiety medication. 

Tony broke her other lamp. 

* * *

Sometimes Tony woke up to photos texted to him, like a clue. Jarvis was forbidden from geotracking the locations, and the longer it took Tony to suss out the place, the more teasing Bucky gave him later. His favorite was the one Bucky sent of him standing at the leg of the Eiffel Tower, wearing a beret. Tony convinced himself Bucky was trying to trick him into guessing wrong, and spent an hour looking at facsimile Eiffel Towers around the world. 

Bucky called to laugh properly when Tony guessed China instead of Paris. 

Tony set the picture to the man’s number. 

* * *

Laconic smile mostly visible behind the steam, Bucky answered Tony’s call shirtless, while lounging in a hot spring in Iceland. It took a few minutes before Tony rebooted his brain enough to start the story about Clint, Natasha, a prank war, and the fact that Tony was winning it. Despite not being a part of it. 

Bucky didn’t comment.

He did shift his grip on the phone to frame himself a little better. 

* * *

Anak Krakatoa erupted again, and the Avengers were waived off by local authorities, who had their eye on it well in advance. It was fortunate they did, because it meant that the Avengers were close enough to help when an earthquake hit Seattle. 

Bucky called as they were climbing onto the jet after three days of rescue and aid, with an apology that he couldn’t get a flight out of Jakarta to join them. 

The bolt of fear at Bucky being next to an actively erupting volcano dissolved at the relief of hearing from him. They spent Tony’s flight back trading stories of uplifting humanity from the two disaster sites. They stayed on the phone while Tony showered off three days of dirt and sweat. They stayed on the phone as Tony laid down for bed, and the last thing he heard as he passed out was Bucky’s voice, still talking to him. 

* * *

Tony called after a press conference ended with him threatening to glue the reporter to the ceiling. It wasn’t a panic attack, he didn’t need a break, just wanted to share, and point Bucky towards the newly posted video of the guy’s impotent rant in reply. 

* * *

Mona set four packets of paper on the table between them, talking in details and statistics, and one poorly executed computer programming metaphor, until Tony admitted that talk therapy wasn’t enough to fix everything. 

Jarvis scheduled the appointment. 

Tony didn’t mention it to Bucky. 

* * *

Snow was falling around him when the call connected, and Tony laughed at the sight of the too literal Winter Soldier before he registered the emptiness in his eyes. A few prodding questions got Bucky to spin with the camera, and Tony’s decadent youth confirmed that he was standing in the Alps. Maybe it wasn’t exactly where he’d fallen from a train, but it was close enough to set off the memories. 

Bucky’s voice was detached, borderline dissociated, as Tony asked question after question about the trip there, where he was staying, what he’d eaten that day. He talked about the chalet he owned in Switzerland, and the other one he owned in France, and offered either of them up for Bucky to use. He got out of bed and went to the shop, waking up Dum-E to chirp and coo questions at the screen. He stayed on until the life came returned to Bucky’s voice, and terse answers turned descriptive. 

He stayed on the phone until he needed to head to a Board of Directors meeting, and then stayed on longer. 

When Bucky’s eyebrows suddenly knitted and he started yelling about how Tony needed to get regular sleep, Tony knew he could leave for the meeting.

* * *

Someone asked the wrong question, in the wrong tone, on the wrong day, and almost a year of work dissolved. Clint found him in the stairwell for a signed conversation that Tony barely answered. Thor carried him to the living room. Natasha painted his nails while Sam cooked them all some dinner. Steve grabbed his list of ‘critically important modern things’ and listed movies and shows he still hadn’t watched. No one asked him to speak, or wanted to know what went wrong. No one needed anything from him. The Avengers spent the evening enjoying M*A*S*H episodes and eating stew. 

When Tony was calmer, clearer, he found Steve watching him, not the show, nothing but support and confidence in his gaze. They nodded, neither man interested in having another heart to heart, but they heard each other. It helped.

* * *

Bucky called from a patch of sand and rocks, explained that it was where the Ten Rings kept Tony, that there were a few remnants of structures standing, before asking for permission to destroy them. 

Tony told him, “That’s not your battle to fight. I already fought it, I already won it. You breaking your arm on the bones of my dead enemies isn’t going to undo what happened.”

“It’ll make me feel better.”

“No, it won’t.”

That was the only time Bucky hung up angry.

* * *

The first meds the new doctor put him on made him forget to eat. Not because of memory issues. He just stopped experiencing hunger. The next meds made sleep impossible. Then there was the one that made his anxiety worse. He did not like that one. 

It took a while. Weeks. 

He hated it. It was weakness and it was concession and it was proof he’d failed. 

He hated it. 

He hated it more when he realized they helped. 

* * *

Bucky called from what had to be Amsterdam, splattered with paint, and on enough drugs that he managed to achieve a middling high. He laughed and smiled, and seemed twenty years old as he babbled, before realizing that Tony was lying in bed, apologizing with a squeak and ending the call with a curse. 

* * *

When Tony and Mona and the doctor found a combination that worked, when the bands around his chest slackened, when he lost the weight on his shoulders, the tension in his gut, Tony had four extremely productive sessions in a row with Mona. After the fourth, Tony went flying. 

He warned Steve, but didn’t ask for permission. 

Crossing the country in the suit was an easy, lazy flight, with clouds drifting around him, and the landscape distant beneath him. 

The rubble of his Malibu house was long gone, but nothing was rebuilt. The broken frame of the house was visible in the edge of the grass and the bits of concrete sticking above the dirt. He owned the land, and hadn’t authorized any changes. 

He stood on the precipice, staring at the ocean, trying to reconcile how he now thought about those events with what he knew he’d thought then. 

It was pointless. 

One of them was irrational, it was never going to square with reality, because he hadn’t been living within those confines then. He’d built his own world, with his own rules, and whenever something broke from what he expected as truth, he deleted it, or overwrote it, or justified it so it aligned. He knew the paths his logic had taken then, but following them now made his skin itch with the wrongness of it all. 

That, more than anything, felt like a victory. 

His thumb was over the button to call, when courage failed him. 

He texted, _ Mona convinced me to try meds. _

The app indicated the recipient was typing. It stopped. Started. Stopped. Started. Continued. Stopped. 

His phone rang with a video request. 

“Hi.”

“Hey, Sweet T.” Bucky hesitated, brow furrowing as he analyzed what he was seeing. “You’re in Malibu.”

“Yeah.” 

Bucky nodded. “So Mona talked you into meds?”

“Yeah.”

“Are they helping?” 

Tony’s mouth pursed and he looked away from the camera as he said, “Yes.”

“Tony?”

“Just thought you should know, you know? That I need them. Probably for a while. Maybe forever. Just thought you should know that I needed them.” The edge of the cliff had a bit of dirt suspended by some roots, dangling like it might drop. Chunks of the ground where his house once stood fell into the ocean regularly, but this piece hadn’t let go yet. One little root held it there. Eventually it would fall too. Gravity was like that. Building a new place would make it worse. Part of why he hadn’t. He didn’t want more of the place to fall away. 

“Tony? Did you think I was gonna… I don’t know what’s in your head on this one. Did you think I’d be anything less than thrilled and proud of you for it?” When he got no reply, he chuckled, “Nope. Bad penny, Sweetheart. Bad. Penny. No getting rid of me.”

* * *

The Avengers fought some guy calling himself Doom. 

Tony got put through a wall with half the armor on. 

Tony woke up in medical with a StarkTab propped up so a scowling Bucky Barnes would be able to see when he did. 

Steve was an enabler. 

* * *

Their calls were a known thing among the Avengers. Had been almost since the beginning. It was how they’d talked Steve out of a global game of Best Friend Hide and Seek. It got to the point that if Tony was out of his room or his lab with his phone, any one of the other residents might steal it for a minute. 

Sometimes, to rat Tony’s bad habits out to the person best able to scold him into changing them. Sometimes it was check on Bucky. One time it was because Natasha needed to rat Steve out for jumping parachuteless from yet another plane. 

No one pressed Bucky about coming home. 

Same as they never pressed Tony when he was having a bad day. 

Somewhere along the line, reminders that they were willing to change to help him stopped being a landmine, and turned into a comfort. 

* * *

Tony’s phone buzzed, and he immediately opened the message. There was a photo of Bucky, smiling widely, with nothing but sky above him. 

That was cheating. 

_ Even geniuses can’t predict cloud formations. _

He got back a string of amused emojis. Clint deserved a new round of pranks for introducing Bucky to those. Clint didn’t even have Bucky’s number, because Bucky didn’t message the others, so the only one suffering was Tony. A couple times, Bucky got close to explaining why Tony was the only one he messaged. Nothing clear. Something about figuring himself out, instead of becoming who someone else wanted. 

Skimming through the rest of the documents Pepper sent him, Tony flagged a few watchouts for R&D in the newest tablet release. He wasn’t certain that there was a durability issue, but he wasn’t approving it until they’d convinced him that the borderless glass wasn’t going to shatter the first time a toddler got within gnawing range. 

Steve wanted to meet later and go over the latest round of the potential threat list. Ever since Doom popped up like a daisy, they were all on edge. Tony responded by updating everyone’s tech. Steve updated contingencies and attack plans. If he’d found a new name for their list of potential supervillains, the whole team would spend the next two weeks bruised as they work through simulations and test runs. 

His phone buzzed with a new picture. A paper coffee cup and a pastry sitting on a steel table. 

_ Still cheating. _

More emojis. 

Then, _ I thought you were a coffee expert. _

_ That is a plain white cup with a black lid. I’m not Sherlock, and most of his deductions were specious or pure luck. Science requires demonstrable evidence. _

Bucky was probably in a city again, drinking with locals in bars and finding markets full of strange produce. On the most recent ranking, the markets in Crete were winning. 

In good news, one of the engineers had figured out what the Air Force was using in their new do-dad that cut down on a pilot’s G forces. They needed a bonus. He read through the description, and the notes on how to improve upon it. They needed a large bonus. That was getting added to all the Iron Man suits. Blacking out for a moment when he went supersonic wasn’t fun, and neither was scrubbing vomit out of the helmet after a fight. 

He’d roll it into the Avenjet too. 

_ You spoil all my fun, sweetheart. _

Tony grinned, but wanted to finish the email to the engineer’s supervisor before he got distracted. He started writing in a number amount, then hesitated, switched to a percentage, hesitated again, and eventually wrote ‘give them a bonus so generous they’ll never leave SI’ before hitting send. 

Now then. Bucky was in a chatty mood, which usually meant Tony was going to get three or four hours of texts. Or, a multi hour call. 

His expectations proved out when his phone buzzed twice more while Tony walked to the kitchen to refill his cup. 

_ Figure it out yet? _

_ Busy this morning or just trying to talk Jarvis into turning on my gps? _

Tony rolled his eyes. 

He meant to quip something back, probably a long explanation, inventing ridiculous deductions based on any fragment of a detail he could find in the otherwise innocuous picture. He wasn’t fast enough. Bucky was extra chatty today. Coffee filled with the last of the carafe, Tony contemplated the espresso machine before caving almost instantly. It hummed at him, and he checked his phone. 

Almost the same picture as before. 

Coffee cup. Pastry, now with a bite missing. Steel table. 

The shot was angled slightly up, pulled slightly back, and blurred in the background was a robotic arm. 

That was weird. 

He knew that arm. 

And that blurry couch in the far distance.

And that dent on the table from dropping Steve’s shield. 

He knew his lab. His shop. 

He needed to move. 

To run.

The elevator was faster if it wasn’t at ground level. Or the suit? The suit was fastest. But he’d have to break a window into the shop. Whatever. He could have it fixed. So the suit was the way to go. He just needed to move first. Call the thing. Not stare at his phone in shock. Was this what Bucky’s brain was like when Tony came back? Echoing hollowly around a single task but incapable of doing anything about it? 

He needed to move. 

And tell Steve and the team. 

But mostly move. 

Call the suit. 

Or just run down the stairs. 

He’d break an ankle. 

Or worse.

Not a good start. 

Why was his body refusing to respond? All he could do was stare at the phone in his hand and the picture of his very blurry robot in the background. 

Bucky was back and Tony was frozen in place like it didn’t matter, and why was his face wet? That didn’t make sense. He was inside. Rain was an outside thing. 

Something dinged nearby, and it was important, he knew it was important, but he still couldn’t look away from that picture. Maybe that was the espresso machine? Or Jarvis reminding him of espresso? 

The echo in his head settled, and left behind something Mona pointed out to him months ago. No matter how often he called, no matter how frequent their texts, no matter that they had never placed a call and gone to voicemail, Tony wouldn’t believe Bucky was coming back until he did. 

Tony wouldn’t believe the promise, no matter how he wanted to. 

He needed the evidence.

And now he was holding it. 

“Hey.” 

A metal hand took the phone, while the other, calloused and warm, brushed aside -- oh, Tony was crying, that made more sense than sudden indoor rain.

“You’re here.” Brilliant as ever. 

“Nah, this is a life model decoy.”

Tony laughed wetly. “You’re better?”

“No, not really, but I think I understand better what ya meant ‘bout ladders now.” They grinned like idiots for a moment, then Bucky melted, “Thank you, for letting me go.”

“Thank you for coming back.”

“I was always gonna.”

“I didn’t believe you.”

“I know, and you let me leave anyway.” 

Tony saw when Bucky’s eyes flicked to his mouth for a moment, guiltily. “Can we have our big dramatic soap opera reunion moment now?”

“I’m not all better, Tony.”

“Neither am I.”

“M’gonna need some help.”

“So am I.”

“M’not always gonna be able to catch ya.”

“That’s what the team’s for, and they’ll catch you too.”

“Tony--”

“Bucky, we’re never going to be one hundred percent. Ever. We’re never going to be perfect. I don’t mind some flaws, I don’t mind if you have bad days, or bad weeks. I’m not all better, I’m not fixed, but I’m closer today than I was yesterday. I’ll be closer tomorrow than I am today. Recovery isn’t a straight path, but it’s still progress, and that matters.” Tony couldn’t keep himself from spending half his declaration glancing at Bucky’s mouth. 

“You’ve really been listening to your therapist, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and she’s mine, get your own.” He poked at Bucky’s chest, then left his palm over his heart, “But really. You’ll be getting your own, and you’ll take it seriously. You’ll talk to them, not just tell them what they want to hear. You’ll find one who’ll call you on your bullshit, and you’ll hate it so much I’ll need to replace all the gym equipment once a week, but you’ll go anyway.”

Bucky nodded, no resistance at all. “So that’s your plan? Stick together and celebrate the small victories when we find em?”

“We’ll celebrate the large ones too. With fireworks, and fancy champagne. Billionaire, remember?”

“And that’s enough for you?” The question wasn’t what he really meant, but it mirrored the one in the front of Tony’s mind. Not if that deal was enough, if that future plan was enough, but if _ Bucky _ was enough. 

If Tony was enough. 

He waited for the doubts to rise, for the pain to overtake him, for fear to consume him, for the hope to shatter under the weight of his trauma. Nothing came. The answer stayed in place, unbreakable. It clicked into place like it was meant to be there, like it couldn’t be pried free. 

“Yeah,” Tony breathed, “it is.”

Bucky smiled, hearing what Tony meant, and leaned closer to brush his answer across Tony’s lips. 

“So are you.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think they finally count as healing.... I think. Recovery doesn't cross a finish line and then you get a sticker and a cookie and you're all better forever. It's work, and it's forever, and its hard, and you'll hate it. You have to do it anyway. But I am very proud of these two for making healthy choices (for once). 
> 
> Yell at me here, yell at me on [Tumblr](https://striving-artist.tumblr.com/), whatever works for you. 
> 
> **Also please come look at the [Original Thing](https://striving-artist.tumblr.com/post/188345544262/things-my-publisher-and-i-have-said-as-we) because I would really like people to read it!**  


**Author's Note:**

> I swear we're ending this thing with a happily ever after. They've deserved one for ages and I haven't delivered. It's now time.  
Also, really, come understand why it took me so long (it's good things) with this [Tumblr Post](https://caitymschmidt.tumblr.com/post/188333082625/caitymschmidt-ten-days-til-publication-you).


End file.
